'■•{ 


THE 

HISTORY 

OF    NATIONS 


GREECE 


Tii£ 


t  1  <Lv,    X.  \'l  \ 


JABO'- 


ford 


/Ait 


'O^-^ 
U? ' 


THE  HISTORY  OF  NATIONS 

HENRY  CABOT  LODGE  ,Ph.D.,LLD.  EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 


GREECE 

by 

C.W.C.OMAN.LL.D. 

Oxford  University 

With  continuation  from  the  time  of 

Alexander  to  the  present  day 

by 

G.MERCER  ADAM 


Volume     II 


I  llustrated 


The  H  .W.  Snow  and  Son  Company 

C  h  i   c    a    g    o 


Copyright,  lltOT.  by 
JOHX  D.  MORRIS  &  COMPANY 

Copyright.  19  JO 
THE  H.  W.  SXOW  &  SOX  COMPAXY 


^.^c 


I '-f :  '^(J '  < 


THE   HISTORY   OF  NATIONS 

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 

HENRY  CABOT  LODGE,  PkD.,  L.L.D. 

Associate  Editors  and  Authors 


ARCHIBALD  HENRY  SAYCE,  LL.D., 

Professor     o£     Assyriology,     Oxford     Uni- 
versity 


SIR  ROBERT  K.  DOUGLAS, 

Professor  of  Chinese,  King's  College,  Lon- 
don 


CHRISTOPHER  JOHNSTON.  M.D.,  Ph.D., 

Associate  Professor  of  Oriental  History  and 
Archaeology,  Johns  Hopkins   University 


C.  W.  C.  OMAN,  LL.D., 

Professor  of  History,  Oxford  University 


THEODOR  MOMMSEN, 

Late   Professor  of   Ancient    History.    Uni- 
versity of  Berlin 


ARTHUR  C.  HOWLAND,  Ph.D., 


JEREMIAH  WHIPPLE  JENKS,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.. 

Professor   of   Political    Economy   and    Pol- 
itics, Cornell  University 


KANICHI  ASAKAWA.  Ph.D.. 

Instructor    in     the     History    of    Japanese 
Civilization,  Yale  University 


WILFRED  HAROLD  MUNRO.  Ph.D., 

Professor    of    European    History,     Brown 
University 


G.  MERCER   ADAM, 

Historian  and  Editor 


°7y1vanfa"*  °^  "''*°''''  ^"'''^'''*^  °^  ^*'"""        FRED  MORROW  FLING.  Ph.D.. 


Professor  of  Euroi>ean  History,  University 
of  Nebraska 


CHARLES  MERIVALE.  LL.D., 

Late   Dean   of   Ely,   formerly   Lecturer  in        FRANCOIS  AUGUSTE  MARIE  MIGNET. 


History,  Cambridge  University 


Late  Member  of  the  French  Academy 


J.  HIGGINSON  CABOT.  Ph.D., 

Department  of   History,  Wellesley  College 


JAMES  WESTFALL  THOMPSON.  Ph.D., 

Department     of     History,     University     of 
Chicago 


SIR  WILLIAM  W.  HUNTER.  F.R.S., 

Late  Director-General  of  Statistics  in  India 


SAMUEL  RAWSON  GARDINER.  LL.D., 

Professor  of  Modem  History.   King's  Col- 
lege, London 


GEORGE  M.  DUTCHER,  Ph.D., 

Professor  of  History,  Wesleyan  University 


R.  W.  JOYCE,  LL.D., 

Commissioner  for   the   Publication  of   the 
Ancient  Laws  of  Ireland 


ASSOCIATE  EDITORS  AND   AUTHORS-Continued 


JUSTIN  McCarthy,  ll.d.. 

Author  and  Historian 


PAUL  LOUIS  LEGER, 

Professor  of  the  Slav  Languages,  C611eRe 
de  France 


AUGUSTUS  HUNT  SHEARER,  Ph.D., 

Instructor    in     History,     Trinity    College.        WILLIAM  E.  LINGLEBACH,  Ph.D., 

Hartford  Assistant   Professor  of  European    Histor>', 

University  of  Pennsylvania 

W.  HAROLD  CLAFLIN,  BJ^., 

Department    of    History.     Harvard     Uni-       BAYARD  TAYLOR, 


versity 


Former  United  States  Minister  to  Germany 


CHARLES  DANDLIKER,  LL.D., 

President  of  Zurich  University 


SIDNEY  B.  FAY.  Ph.D., 

Professor  of   History,    Dartmouth   College 


ELBERT  JAY  BENTON,  Ph.D., 

Department  of  History,  Western  Reserve 

University 


SIR  EDWARD  S.  CREASY, 

Late  Professor  of  History,  University  Col- 
lege, London 


ARCHIBALD  CARY  COOLIDGE,  Ph.D., 

Assistant    Professor   of    History,    Harvard 
University 

WILLIAM  RICHARD  MORFILL,  M.A., 

Professor  of   Russian   and   other  Slavonic 
Languages,  Oxford  University 

CHARLES  EDMUND  FRYER,  Ph.D., 

Department  of  History,  McGill  University 

E.  C.  OTTE, 

Specialist  on  Scandinavian  History 


J.  SCOTT  KELTIE,  LL.D., 

President  Royal  Geographical  Society 


ALBERT  GALLOWAY  KELLER,  Ph.D., 

Assistant   Professor  of   the   Science  of  So- 
ciety, Yale  University 


EDWARD  JAMES  PAYNE,  M.A., 

Fellow  of  University  College,  Oxford 


PHILIP  PATTERSON  WELLS,  Ph.D., 

Lecturer  in  History  and  Librarian  of  the 
Law  School,  Yale  University 


FREDERICK  ALBION  OBER, 

Historian,  Author  and  Traveler 


JAMES  WILFORD  GARNER,  Ph.D., 

Professor  of   Political  Science,   University 
of  Illinois 


EDWARD  S.  CORWIN,  Ph.D., 

Instructor    in     History,     Princeton     Uni- 
versity 


JOHN  BACH  McMASTER,  Litt.D.,  LL.D., 

Professor  of  History.   University  of  Penn- 
sylvania 


JAMES  LAMONT  PERKINS.   Managing  Editor 


The  editors  and  publishers  desire  to  express  their  appreciation  for  valuable 
advice  and  suggestions  received  from  the  following:  Hon.  Andrew  D.  White, 
LL.D.,  Alfred  Thayer  Mahan,  D.C.L.,  LL.D.,  Hon.  Charles  Emory  Smith, 
LL.D.,  Professor  Edward  Gaylord  Bourne,  Ph.D.,  Charles  F.  Thwing, 
LL.D.,  Dr.  Emil  Reich,  William  Elliot  Griffis,  LL.D.,  Professor  John 
Martin  Vincent,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  Melvil  Dewey,  LL.D.,  Alston  Ellis,  LL.D., 
Professor  Charles  H.  McCarthy,  Ph.D.,  Professor  Herman  V.  Ames,  Ph.D., 
Professor  Walter  L.  Fleming,  Ph.D.,  Professor  David  Y.  Tho.mas,  Ph.D., 
Mr.  Otto  Reich  and  Mr.  O.  M.  Dickerson. 

vii 


PREFACE 


From  time  to  time  I  have  found  it  necessary  to  rewrite  portions  of 
this  book,  in  order  to  keep  it  abreast  with  modern  discoveries.  In 
the  second  edition  some  sixty  pages  had  to  be  more  or  less  recast, 
in  consequence  of  the  appearance  of  the  IloXirsta  twv  'A07]vacwv  in 
1 89 1.  Many  small  changes  have  been  made  since  then,  and  in  this 
latest  edition  I  have  thought  it  well  to  reconstruct  the  whole  of 
Chapter  IL,  which  deals  with  the  origins  of  the  Greek  nationality. 
Archaeological  evidence  on  the  prehistoric  days  of  the  Aegean  lands 
has  been  accumulating  so  fast  of  late  that  the  whole  section  required 
revision.  The  excavations  of  Mr.  A.  J.  Evans  in  Crete  were 
enough  by  themselves  to  cause  the  introduction  of  several  new 
paragraphs. 

I  have  also  made  appreciable  changes  in  my  narratives  of  some 
of  the  battles  of  the  fifth  century  b.  c,  mainly  in  consequence  of 
reading  the  very  interesting  monographs  of  Mr.  Grundy,  to  whom 
I  must  express  my  gratitude. 

A  word  of  thanks  must  be  given  to  many  correspondents, — some 
known  to  the  author,  some  strangers  to  him, — who  have  written 
to  make  suggestions,  and  to  point  out  errors  in  the  previous  editions. 
Most  of  them  will  note  that  their  advice  has  been  taken  into  con- 
sideration, and  all  will  understand  that  it  was  duly  appreciated. 


Oxford  University. 


^- ^ 


IX 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  Geography  of  Greece 3 

II.  Aegean  Civilization  :    Origin  of  the  Greek  Nation- 
ality           20 

III.  Homeric  Poems  and  the  Greeks  of  the  Homeric  Age  29 

IV.  Religion  of  the  Greeks:     Olympia  and  Delphi      .  38 
V.  The  Great  Migrations 46 

VI.  Colonies  in  Asia 51 

VII.  Dorians  in  Peloponnesus — The  Legislation  of  Ly- 

curgus 58 

VIII.  Establishment  of  Spartan  Supremacy  in  Pelopon- 
nesus.    743-560  B.  c 70 

IX.  Age  of  Colonization 78 

X.  Age  of  the  Tyrants.    Circa  750-560  b.  c.  .        .        .90 

XL  Early  History  of  Attica.     Circa  1068-621  b.  c.  .        .      97 

XII.  Solon  and  Peisistratus.     Circa  600-510  b.  c.     .        .     102 

XIII.  The  Lydian  Monarchy.     700-546  b.  c.        .        .        .114 

XIV.  Cyrus  and  Darius.     549-516  b.  c.         .         .        .        .119 
XV.  Darius  and  the  Greeks — The  Ionian  Revolt.     510- 

492  B.  c 131 

XVI.  Constitution  of  Cleisthenes.     510-508  b.  c       .        .     140 
XVII.  European    Greece — Jealousy    of   the    States.     509- 

490  2.  c '       .         .        .        .154 

XVIII.  Battle  of  Marathon  to  the  Invasion  of  Xerxes. 

490-480  b.  c 165 

XIX.  The  Invasion  of  Xerxes.     480  b.  c 181 

XX.  Salamis  and  Plataea.     480-479  b.  c.  ,        .        .     195 

XXI.  Greeks  of  Italy  and  Sicily.     600-465  b.  c.        .        .214 

XXII.  Events  in  Asia  Minor  and  Greece.     479-460  b.  c.  ,    222 

xi 


xii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER                                                                                                                                                  ■  PAGE 

XXIII.  Rise  of  Athenian  Empire.     471-458  b.  c.     .         .  232 

XXIV.  Atpiens  at  the  Height  of  her  Power.     458-445 

B-  c 241 

XXV.  The  Years  of  Peace.     445-431  b.  c.       .        .        .251 

XXVI.  Rivalry  of  Sparta  and  Athens.     435-432  b.  c.  .  262 
XXVII.  Early  Years  of  the  Peloponnesian  War.    431- 

429  B.  c 274 

XXVIII.  Siege  of  Plataea.     429-427  b.  c 286 

XXIX.  Sphacteria  and  Delium.     427-424  b.  c.          .        .  299 
XXX.  Brasidas  in  Thrace — The  Peace  of  Nicias.     424- 

421  B.  c 313 

XXXI.  Truce  of  Nicias.     421-416  b.  c.       .         .         .        .  320 

XXXII.  Expedition  to  Sicily.     415-413  b.  c.       .        .        .  328 

XXXIII.  Decline  of  Athens.     413-41  i  b.  c.         .         .        .  349 

XXXIV.  Surrender  of  Athens.     404  b.  c.    .         .        .        .  363 
XXXV.  Spartan  Supremacy  in  Greece.     404-396  b.  c.      .  379 

XXXVI.  Revolt  from  Sparta.     395-387  b.  c.        .        .        .  396 

XXXVII.  The  Greeks  of  the  West.     413-338  b.  c.      .         .  407 

XXXVIII.  Last  Years  of  Spartan  Hegemony.    387-379  b.  c.  419 

XXXIX.  Uprising  of  Thebes.     379-371  b.  c.         .        .        .  426 

XL.  Theban  Predominance.     371-362  b.  c.    .        .        .  436 

XLI.  The    Peace   of    362    b.  c.    to   Philip's    Invasion. 

362-352  B.  c 452 

XLII.  Philip  and  Demosthenes.     352-344  b.  c.       .        .  463 

XLIII.  End  of  Freedom.     344-336  b.  c 471 

XLIV.  Alexander  the  Great,     336-323  b.  c.     .         .        .  483 
XLV.  Alexander's  Successors  and  the  Greek  Leagues. 

323-146  B.  c 511 

XLVI.  Under  Roman  Rule.     146  b.  C.-476  a.  d.        .        .  521 

XLVII.  The  Middle  Ages  and  Turkish  Yoke.     476-1821  532 

XLVIII.  The  War  of  Independence.     1821-1829         .        .  542 

XLIX.  The  Present  Kingdom.     1829- 1906         .        .        .  546 

Bibliography 553 

Index 561 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Socrates  Drinks  the  Hemlock  (Photogravure)     .        Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

Priestess  of  Apollo  on  the  Tripod  at  Delphi      .         .         .12 

Sack  of  Troy 30 

Homer 38 

Foot  Races  at  Olympian  Games      , 44 

Lycurgus 60 

Solon 102 

An  Audience  in  Athens  .         . 152 

Leonidas  and  his  Three  Hundred  Spartans          .        .        .  192 

Victors  of  the  Battle  of  Salamis 204 

Themistocles 230 

Pericles  and  Aspasia  Visiting  the  Heights  of  the  Acropolis  254 

Herodotus  Reads  his  History  at  Olympia     ....  260 

Pericles 284 

Suppliant  Praying  before  the  Statue  of  Zeus    .        .        .  332 

School  of  Plato 414 

Demosthenes 464 

Alexander  Tames  Bucephalus 482 

Aristotle 484 

Battle  of  Issus  (Colored) 492 

Alexander  the  Great 500 

Death  of  Alexander          ........  504 

Theodosius  Refused  Admission  to  Church     ....  528 

Emperor  Justinian  Orders  Compilation  of  the  Laws  into 

A  Code .  532 

Suliote  and  Turkish  Soldier  in  Mortal  Combat         .        .  540 

xiii 


xiv  LIST     OF     ILLUSTRATIONS 

TEXT  MAPS 


Greece  about  550  b.  c 

The  Homeric  Map  of  Greece 

Spartan  Supremacy  in  Peloponnesus,  circa  560  b.  c.   . 

Asia  in  600  b.  c. 

Plan  of  Battle  of  ^Marathon 

Plan  of  Salamis 

The  Three  Positions  of  the  Greek  Army  before  the  Battle 

OF  Plataea    

Greece  during  the  Invasion  of  Xerxes.     480-479  b.  c. 
Greek  Colonies  in  Sicily  and  Italy.     500-465  b.  c. 

The  Athenian  Empire,  circa  445  b.  c 

Greece  at  the  Outbreak  of  the  Peloponnesian  War,  431  b.  c 

The  Athenian  Siege  of  Syracuse 

Plan  of  Battle  of  Leuctra 

Dominions  and  Dependencies  of  Alexander,  circa  323  b.  c 


PAGE 
19 

37 

17 

121 

167 
201 

210 
213 
221 

259 
273 
33(^ 
434 
506 


HISTORY  OF  GREECE 


HISTORY  OF  GREECE 

Chapter    I 

THE    GEOGRAPHY   OF   GREECE 

WHEN  we  can  first  discern  through  the  mists  of  antiquity 
the  race  who  called  themselves  Hellenes — though  we, 
following  the  ancient  Romans,  know  them  better  as 
Greeks — we  find  them  dwelling  in  the  southern  region  of  the  Bal- 
kan Peninsula,  That  they  must  at  some  remote  date  have  wandered 
into  that  land  from  Asia  we  may  surmise,  but  cannot  prove. 

There  is  a  great  mountain  range,  which  under  many  names 
forms  the  backbone  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula.  Starting  from  the 
Alps,  it  runs  from  north  to  south,  forming  the  watershed  between 
the  streams  which  flow  west  into  the  Adriatic  and  those  which  run 
northeast  or  southeast  to  seek  the  Danube  or  the  Aegean.  Of 
this  great  chain  the  southernmost  link  is  a  range  called  Pindus. 
From  the  broad  square  tract  which  forms  the  bulk  of  the  peninsula 
this  range  of  Pindus  strikes  out  boldly  into  the  Mediterranean,  and 
with  its  spurs  and  dependent  ranges  forms  a  great  mountainous 
mass  projecting  for  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  its 
base,  and  almost  touching  the  thirty-sixth  degree  of  latitude  with 
its  southernmost  cape. 

It  is  this  southern  extension  of  the  Balkan  Peninsula  which  has 
been  since  the  earliest  dawn  of  history  the  home  of  the  Hellenic 
race.  Here  alone  could  the  Greek  claim  that  he  was  the  first  inhab- 
itant of  the  land,  the  true  child  of  the  soil.  His  cities  were  built 
on  every  shore  from  Gaul  to  Colchis,  but  in  all  lands  save  this  he 
was  a  stranger  and  a  sojourner,  maintaining  a  precarious  hold  on  a 
fortified  haven  or  a  strip  of  coastland  won  from  some  earlier 
possessor. 

The  Hellenic  Peninsula — if  we  may  so  name  the  southern  pro- 
jection of  the  Balkan  region — is  not  large.     It  is  about  equal  to 


4  GREECE 

Scotland  in  size,^  and  may  be  aptly  compared  to  that  country  in 
many  other  things  than  mere  extent.  Both  are  almost  entirely  sur- 
rounded by  the  sea;  both  possess  a  wildly  irregular  coast-line, 
seamed  with  countless  bays  and  inlets ;  both  are  fringed  by  a  wide- 
spreading  chain  of  islands  great  and  small ;  both  own  a  soil  not  over- 
fertile  for  the  greater  part  of  its  surface ;  and  above  all,  both  are 
pre-eminently  mountain-lands.  In  Greece,  as  in  Scotland,  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  get  out  of  sight  of  the  hills;  no  spot  in  the 
whole  land  is  more  than  fifteen  miles  from  some  considerable  range. 
The  three  plains  of  any  size  which  it  contains  do  not  together  form 
one-sixth  of  its  surface. 

The  mountains  of  Greece,  then,  give  the  land  its  special  char- 
acter. They  are  not  remarkable  for  their  great  height — Olympus, 
the  loftiest  summit,  falls  short  of  ten  thousand  feet — but  are  pecul- 
iarly wild,  rugged,  and  barren.  The  sharp  bare  limestone  peaks 
and  ridges  stand  out  with  surprising  distinctness  in  the  bright  dry 
atmosphere  of  the  South,  Their  summits  do  not  reach  the  region 
of  perpetual  snow,  nor  are  their  outlines  softened  by  forests ;  all  is 
clear-cut  and  hard.  Moreover,  there  is  so  much  sheer  cliff  and 
impassable  ravine  in  their  structure  that  they  constitute  much  more 
effective  barriers  between  valley  and  valley  than  might  be  inferred 
from  their  mere  height,  which  generally  ranges  between  three  thou- 
sand and  seven  thousand  feet  above  the  sea.  The  paths  from  one 
district  to  another  are  few  and  difficult,  winding  at  the  bottom  of 
beetling  crags  or  climbing  precipitous  gorges  in  their  tortuous 
course.  Hence  each  tribe  was  well  protected  from  its  neighbors ; 
the  points  at  which  it  could  be  assailed  were  well  known,  and  could 
in  most  cases  be  obstructed  with  ease,  and  firmly  held  by  a  handful 
of  resolute  men.  Greece  was  framed  by  Nature  for  the  home  of 
small  independent  communities. 

Not  the  least  characteristic  feature  of  the  Greek  mountains  is 
their  chaotic  complexity.  There  is  no  general  system  or  order  in 
their  course;  sometimes  they  remind  us  of  the  ribs  starting  from 
a  backbone,  sometimes  of  the  diverging  arms  of  a  star-fish,  some- 
times of  the  complicated  meshes  of  a  spider's  web.  Ranges  turn 
sharply  at  right  angles  to  themselves,  or  divide  into  parallel  chains, 
only  to  meet  again ;  bold  ridges,  whose  height  promises  a  long 

1  Scotland  contains  29,800  square  miles ;  the  modern  kingdom  of  Greece,  in- 
cluding the  Cyclades  and  Thessaly,  24,900;  Southern  Albania,  the  old  Epirus, 
makes  up  some  4000  or  5000  more. 


GEOGRAPHY  5 

course,  end  suddenly  in  a  sea-beaten  cliff.  Deep,  narrow,  unex- 
pected gorges,  torn  open  by  some  convulsion  of  nature,  sunder 
apparently  continuous  lines  of  crest.  At  one  point  an  upland  valley 
is  lost  in  some  recess  of  the  hills,  with  no  natural  outlet  for  its 
waters;  at  another  an  arm  of  the  sea  comes  creeping  up  a  tortuous 
cleft  far  into  the  heart  of  the  mountains.  Everything  is  present 
except  system,  order,  and  regularity. 

Although  the  summits  of  the  mountains  of  Greece  are  invari- 
ably bare  and  bleak,  their  spurs  and  slopes  were  in  ancient  days  not 
entirely  destitute  of  forest  tracts.  In  Northern  Greece  extensive 
woods  of  ash,  beech,  and  pine  were  to  be  found  on  the  sides  of 
Pelion  and  Parnassus,  and,  in  the  Peloponnesus,  Arcadia  was 
renowned  for  its  widespreading  oak-groves.  But  on  the  whole 
the  land  was  not  abundantly  timbered ;  it  had  no  broad,  untrodden 
stretches  of  tangled  woodland  such  as  formed  the  primitive  boun- 
daries of  Germany  or  England — its  wildness  was  always  the  wild- 
ness  of  the  cliff,  and  not  of  the  forest. 

The  character  of  the  mountains  of  a  country  determines  that  of 
its  rivers.  Gentle  slopes  and  wide  plains  produce  broad  navigable 
streams;  rocks  and  ravines  breed  unmanageable  torrents.  The 
course  of  the  rivers  of  Greece  is  so  short,  and  their  descent  to  the 
sea  from  the  hills  so  rapid,  that  not  one  of  them  can  bear  a  boat. 
But  if  incapable  of  use  they  are  not  incapable  of  mischief;  swollen 
with  the  winter  rains,  they  become  broad  dangerous  floods  which 
sweep  away  all  that  impedes  their  passage  to  the  sea,  and  often 
spread  destruction  through  the  cultivated  land  along  their  lower 
course.  The  Greeks  represented  the  gods  of  their  rivers  as  mixed 
shapes,  with  the  body  of  a  bull  and  the  head  of  a  man ;  the  meaning 
is  not  difficult  to  seize — the  figure  combines  the  headlong  rush  and 
brute-strength  of  the  animal  with  that  almost  human  ingenuity  for 
mischief  which  a  stream  in  flood  displays.  Four  or  five  rivers  in 
Greece  possess  a  course  of  some  length,  and  bear  a  considerable 
volume  of  water  to  the  sea  through  all  the  seasons  of  the  year. 
Largest  of  these  was  the  Achelous,  the  king  of  Grecian  waters, 
which  hurries  for  more  than  a  hundred  miles  through  the  gloomy 
gorges  of  Epirus  and  Aetolia,  and  ends  its  obscure  course  opposite 
the  mouth  of  the  Corinthian  Gulf.  Smaller  but  more  famous  were 
Peneus,  which  drains  Thessaly,  the  one  great  Grecian  plain;  and 
Alpheus,  the  sole  river  which  succeeds  in  forcing  its  way  out  of  the 
mountain  barriers  of  Arcadia,  and  reaching  the  Ionian  Sea.     The 


6  GREECE 

other  streams  of  Greece,  though  famous  enough  in  story,  are  little 
better  than  winter  torrents;  for  one-half  of  the  year  they  rush 
tumultuously  down  to  the  sea ;  for  the  other  half  they  show  a  nar- 
row thread  of  water  barely  connecting  a  chain  of  isolated  pools,  or 
even  shrink  away  altogether  and  disappear.  The  bed  of  a  dried- 
up  river  has  always  been  during  the  summer  months  the  most 
obvious,  and  often  the  only,  road  for  the  Greek  wayfarer. 

The  lakes  of  Greece  are  almost  without  exception  the  result  of 
the  accumulation  of  water  in  upland  valleys  without  any  natural 
exit  for  drainage.  The  Lake  of  Pambotis  in  Epirus,  that  of  Copais 
in  Boeotia,  and  that  of  Stymphalus  in  Arcadia,  are  all  fair  examples 
of  this.  There  would  be  no  limit  to  the  increase  of  their  extent 
were  it  not  for  the  existence  of  a  phenomenon  common  in  all  lime- 
stone countries.  The  water,  unable  to  find  its  way  above  ground, 
pierces  itself  a  subterranean  passage,  a  "  swallow,"  which  the  Greeks 
called  ^dpadpov  or  haulo<;,  and  reappears  in  some  lower  valley.  If 
the  "  swallow  "  is  choked,  the  lake  increases  and  inundates  the  whole 
valley.  If  it  is  naturally  or  artificially  enlarged,  the  sheet  of  water 
may  dry  up  entirely.  The  ancient  kings  of  Orchomenus  turned  the 
large  lake  Copais  into  grassy  meadows  by  cutting  a  tunnel  four 
miles  long  into  the  Euboean  Strait ;  a  few  centuries  of  neglect,  how- 
ever, choked  the  issue,  and  reproduced  a  broad  expanse  of  marsh 
which  exists  till  this  day. 

What  Greece  lacks  in  navigable  rivers  is  more  than  compen- 
sated for  by  her  numerous  gulfs.  These  arms  of  the  sea  run  up 
into  the  heart  of  the  land,  and  make  almost  every  district  readily 
accessible  from  the  water.  The  Corinthian  Gulf  is  but  the  largest 
example  of  a  long  series  of  land-locked  inlets  which  penetrate 
Greece  from  all  sides ;  so  deeply  is  the  coast  indented  that  even  the 
inmost  recesses  of  Thessaly  or  Arcadia  are  not  more  than  forty 
miles  from  the  nearest  sea.  The  depth  of  her  bays  and  gulfs  pro- 
duces the  surprising  result  that  Greece  has  as  many  miles  of  sea- 
coast  as  Spain  and  Portugal,  though  its  superficial  area  is  only 
one-tenth  of  that  of  the  Iberian  Peninsula. 

As  a  land  of  mountain  and  shore,  Greece  possesses  a  more 
temperate  climate  than  might  have  been  expected  from  her  southern 
latitude.  The  greater  part  of  the  surface  is  upland,  where  the  sum- 
mer heat  is  appreciably  moderated  by  the  elevation.  Moreover, 
the  sea-breeze  penetrates  almost  everywhere  to  cool  and  refresh. 
So  it  comes  to  pass  that  Thessaly,  for  example,  though  further 


GEOGRAPHY  7 

south  than  Naples,  has  a  cHmate  no  warmer  than  that  of  Lombardy ; 
and  that  the  southernmost  plains  of  Messenia  are  the  only  part  of 
the  country  where  anything  approaching  semi-tropical  vegetation 
can  be  found.  The  temperature  of  Greece  was  probably  even  milder 
in  ancient  days  than  now,  for  the  hand  of  man  has  cleared  away  the 
forest  tracts  which  once  equalized  the  rainfall  and  saved  the  land 
from  drought.  The  Greek  held  that  the  excellence  of  his  climate 
quite  compensated  for  the  richness  of  soil  which  was  denied  to  his 
home  by  nature,  and  pointed  out  Hellas  as  owning  the  happy  mean 
between  the  cold  of  the  North  and  the  heat  of  the  South. 

Greece  may  be  divided  into  three  main  parts,  each  separated 
from  the  others  by  an  isthmus.  The  first  includes  Thessaly  and 
Epirus,  the  lands  which  lie  between  the  northern  boundary  of  the 
country,  and  the  Malian  and  Ambracian  gulfs — two  land-locked 
sheets  of  water  which  cut  into  the  peninsula  at  the  thirty-ninth 
degree  of  latitude,  and  reduce  its  breadth  to  sixty-five  miles. 

To  the  south  of  these  inlets  Greece  broadens  out  again  into  its 
middle  region,  the  district  to  which  the  late  geographers  sometimes 
restricted  the  name  of  "  Hellas,"  opposing  it  alike  to  Peloponnesus 
and  to  the  Northern  lands.  This  tract  contains  the  countries  of 
Acarnania,  Aetolia,  Doris,  Locris,  Phocis,  Boeotia,  Attica,  and 
Megaris. 

Lastly,  beyond  the  Isthmus  of  Corinth  lies  the  disconnected 
mass  of  Peloponnesus,  a  mountainous  peninsula  only  joined  to 
Central  Greece  by  a  low-lying  spit  of  land  three  miles  and  a  half 
across. 

The  northern  third  of  Greece  is  divided  into  two  widely  dis- 
similar halves  by  the  great  range  of  Pindus.  Westward  lies 
Epirus,  a  land  never  fully  recognized  as  Greek,  for  the  inhabitants 
were  alien  in  race  and  language,  though  in  the  course  of  time  they 
took  upon  themselves  a  varnish  of  Hellenic  culture  and  civilization. 
It  is  composed  of  a  number  of  mountain  valleys,  some  running 
parallel  with  Pindus,  some  at  right  angles  to  it,  according  as  the 
spurs  of  the  great  range  strike  south  or  west.  The  northern  half 
of  its  coast  is  sheer  cliff,  where  the  Ceraunian  Mountains  run  close 
by  the  seaside;  farther  south  the  shore  is  less  impracticable,  and 
shows  a  narrow  coast-plain  and  one  or  two  fair  harbors.  Epirus 
was  divided  between  three  kindred  tribes — the  Chaonians,  Thespro- 
tians,  and  Molossians.  The  last-named  occupied  the  inland  valleys 
under  the  western  slope  of  Pindus ;  the  Chaonians  and  Thesprotians 


8  GREECE 

shared  the  coast — the  former  holding  the  more  rugged  northern 
tract,  the  latter  the  smaller  and  southern  half  of  the  shore-lands. 
Epirus  only  contains  one  place  of  importance,  the  ancient  oracular 
seat  of  Dodona.  Here,  in  a  secluded  upland  valley  among  the  hills 
of  the  Molossian  territory,  the  priestesses  of  Zeus  dwelt  in  their  oak- 
groves,  and  gave  responses  to  inquirers  from  all  parts  of  Greece. 
Opposite  Epirus  lies  the  long  and  rugged  island  of  Corcyra,  whose 
ridge  runs  parallel  with  the  coast  of  the  mainland,  and  looks  like 
one  more  Epirot  mountain  range  parted  from  its  fellows  by  the 
intervention  of  a  narrow  arm  of  the  sea. 

Thessaly,  the  land  east  of  Pindus,  is  very  different  in  character 
from  Epirus.  It  is  not  divided  by  mountain  ranges,  but  surrounded 
by  them,  forming  a  single  great  plain  shut  in  on  every  side  by  hills. 
To  the  north  it  is  separated  from  Macedonia  by  the  Cambunian 
Mountains — a  chain  which  runs  out  at  right  angles  from  Pindus 
and  culminates  near  the  sea  in  Olympus,  the  highest  of  Greek  moun- 
tains, on  whose  cloud-capped  summit  primeval  tradition  placed  the 
inaccessible  abodes  of  the  gods.  The  southern  shoulder  of  Olym- 
pus turns  south  and  almost  touches  the  Magnesian  range,  the  eastern 
wall  of  Thessaly,  whose  highest  summit — Mount  Ossa — faces 
Olympus  across  the  narrow  gorge  of  Tempe.  Legends  told  how 
the  mountains  had  once  formed  a  continuous  barrier,  and  how 
Poseidon  had  split  Ossa  asunder  from  Olympus  by  a  blow  of  his 
trident,  and  opened  an  outlet  for  the  land-locked  waters  of  Thessaly 
into  the  Aegean.  Tempe  forms  a  picturesque  defile  four  miles  and 
a  half  long,  buried  in  foliage  and  bordered  by  rampart-like  walls 
of  gray  limestone.  Through  its  midst  runs  the  Peneus,  a  vigorous 
stream  even  in  the  heat  of  summer,  for  it  receives  the  drainage  of 
the  whole  Thessalian  plain.  Southward  from  Ossa,  the  Magnesian 
hills  run  hard  by  the  sea,  rising  into  a  secondary  peak  in  the  well- 
wooded  Pelion,  and  ending  in  the  surf-beaten  promontory  of  Sepias. 
A  chain  of  islands — Sciathos,  Icos,  and  several  more — carry  the 
general  direction  of  the  range  out  into  the  open  sea. 

Southward  Thessaly  is  bounded  by  Othrys — "  the  Brow,"  as 
its  name  betokens — a  ridge  five  thousand  feet  high,  which  runs  out 
at  right  angles  from  Pindus,  much  in  the  same  way  as  the  Cam- 
bunian chain  does  in  the  north.  It  approaches  to  within  two  miles 
of  the  southern  point  of  the  Magnesian  range,  and  is  then  broken 
by  a  strait,  the  outlet  of  the  Gulf  of  Pagasae.  This  great  land- 
locked sheet  of  water  lies  along  the  western  base  of  Pelion,  and 


GEOGRAPHY  9 

reaches  far  inland  up  to  lolcos,  the  oldest  haven  of  Thessaly,  where 
the  famous  ship  "  Argo  "  was  said  to  have  been  built.  The  region 
to  the  west  of  the  gulf  formed  the  district  of  Phthidtis,  one  of  the 
earliest  seats  of  Grecian  life,  the  home  of  Hellen,  the  mythical 
founder  of  the  Hellenic  name,  and  Achilles,  the  hero  of  the  war  of 
Troy.  It  is  separated  from  the  Thessalian  plain  by  a  minor  range 
of  hills,^  through  which  the  Enipeus  alone  finds  its  way  northward 
to  join  the  Peneus ;  the  other  streams  of  Phthiotis  seek  the  Paga- 
saean  Gulf. 

Shut  in  by  its  four  mountain  walls,  Thessaly  forms  a  little 
world  apart.  Its  fertile  slopes  and  green  water-meadows  were 
studded  by  more  than  twenty  cities  small  and  great,  whose  relations 
with  each  other  form  one  of  the  most  obscure  chapters  of  Greek 
history.  Three  places  deserve  mention  as  more  important  than  their 
neighbors — Pharsalus,  in  the  southern  angle  of  the  plain;  Pherae, 
which  lies  at  the  foot  of  the  hills  which  separate  Thessaly  from 
Phthiotis  and  the  Pagasaean  Gulf;  and  Larissa,  the  largest  town 
of  all,  which  commands  the  middle  course  of  the  Peneus,  the 
choicest  land  of  the  whole  country. 

Thessaly  was  even  more  celebrated  for  its  pastures  than  its 
cornfields.  The  cattle  which  fed  in  its  water-meadows  were  highly 
esteemed;  but  still  more  so  were  its  horses,  which  gave  mounts  to 
the  famous  Thessalian  cavalry,  the  one  really  important  force  of 
horsemen  that  Greece  could  put  into  the  field.  The  only  drawback 
to  which  the  country  is  subject  is  the  liability  of  its  lower  parts  to 
inundation.  After  the  winter  storms  the  Peneus  cannot  carry  off 
the  rainfall  fast  enough,  and  a  long  backwater,  covering  many 
square  miles,  forms  itself  in  the  lowland  below  the  spurs  of  Ossa. 
When  the  rains  have  ceased,  the  flood  shrinks  back  into  the  two 
deepest  hollows  of  the  plain,  and  forms  the  lakes  of  Boebe  and  Nes- 
sonis,  which  gradually  decrease  till  they  are  replenished  again  in 
winter  by  the  next  inundation. 

South  of  Othrys,  we  come  to  the  second  great  section  of 
Greece — the  lands  which  lie  between  the  Malian  and  Ambracian 
gulfs  to  the  north,  and  those  of  Aegina  and  Corinth  to  the  south. 

After  sending  off  Othrys  eastward,  the  great  range  of  Pindus 
loses  the  comparatively  simple  character  which  it  has  up  to  that 
point  preserved.  It  no  longer  continues  a  single  chain,  but  breaks 
up  into  a  quantity  of  diverging  ridges.     A  mountain-mass  called 

2  Narthacius  and  Titanus. 


10  GREECE 

Typhrestus  is  the  center  from  which  these  spurs  start.  To  the 
southwest  it  sends  out  two  ranges  whose  complexities  form  the 
rug-ged  land  of  Aetolia,  a  district  so  far  from  the  highways  of  civili- 
zation that  its  inhabitants  always  remained  two  or  three  hundred 
years  behind  the  rest  of  the  Greek  races  in  their  development.  As 
late  as  the  Persian  wars  there  were  still  Aetolian  tribes  who  lived 
entirely  by  rapine,  always  went  armed,  and  ate  their  meat  raw. 
The  lower  course  of  the  Achelous — the  Epirot  river  of  which  we 
have  before  spoken — divides  Aetolia  from  Acarnania,  another  high- 
land country,  but  one  less  wild  and  remote  than  its  neighbor.  Its 
coast  presents  many  havens,  notably  the  great  Gulf  of  Ambracia, 
a  land-locked  sea,  not  unlike  the  Pagasaean  Gulf  of  Thessaly,  It 
is  approached  by  a  narrow  strait  a  mile  broad,  almost  blocked  by 
the  promontory  of  Actium ;  then  it  broadens  out  and  runs  inland  for 
twenty  miles  between  Acarnania  and  Epirus.  At  its  end  lay  Argos, 
the  city  of  the  Amphilochi,  a  tribe  closely  akin  to  the  Acarnanians ; 
a  few  miles  from  its  northern  shore  stood  the  more  important  town 
of  Ambracia,  a  Corinthian  colony,  whose  inhabitants  had  driven  the 
Epirots  out  of  the  southernmost  angle  of  their  land.  The  coast  of 
Acarnania  is  fringed  with  islands;  those  at  its  southern  end,  the 
Echinades,  are  gradually  being  absorbed  by  the  mud-flats  deposited 
by  the  Achelous,  which  brings  down  vast  quantities  of  silt  from  its 
upper  course,  and  builds  up  islands  opposite  its  mouth.  Further 
out  to  sea  lie  Leucas,  Ithaca,  and  Cephallenia,  three  rocky  crests  of 
a  submerged  mountain  chain.  Of  these  Leucas,  "  the  White 
Island,"  a  tract  of  gray  limestone  cliffs,  was  once  united  by  a  sand- 
spit  to  the  Acarnanian  mainland,  but  a  canal  cut  across  the  neck 
turned  it  from  a  peninsula  into  an  island.  Ithaca,  a  narrow  and 
rugged  mountain-top,  is  only  famous  as  the  home  of  the  much- 
wandering  Odysseus.  Cephallenia,  the  largest  of  the  three  islands, 
faces  the  mouth  of  the  Gulf  of  Corinth ;  it  was  broad  enough  to 
contain  four  cities,  and  possessed  some  fertile  patches  on  its  coast. 
The  mountain  ranges  which  run  eastward  from  Typhrestus 
are  somewhat  less  chaotic  in  their  structure  than  those  which  go 
towards  Aetolia  and  the  west.  Two  main  chains  can  be  dis- 
tinguished. The  first  is  formed  by  Oeta  and  the  heights  which 
continue  it.  These  mountains  run  close  to  the  shore  of  the  Malian 
Gulf  and  the  Straits  of  Euboea.  Oeta  forms  the  western  part  of 
the  range,  and  contains  the  highest  peaks.  In  the  scanty  space  left 
between  its  declivities  and  the  opposite  slopes  of  Othrys  lies  the 


GEOGRAPHY  11 

valley  of  the  Spercheius,  along  whose  upper  course  dwelt  the  Aeni- 
anes,  while  the  Malians  occupied  the  narrow  coast-plain  at  its 
mouth.  Eastward  of  Malis  the  cliffs  of  Mount  Callidromus,  a 
shoulder  of  Oeta,  come  right  down  to  the  water's  edge,  so  that  there 
was  only  room  for  a  single  wagon  to  pass  in  the  road  which  lies 
between  the  sea  and  the  overhanging  rocks.  This -forms  the  culmi- 
nating point  of  the  defile  along  the  coast  known  as  the  Pass  of 
Thermopylae,  and  is  famous  for  all  time  as  the  spot  which  Leonidas 
and  his  Spartans  held  for  so  long  against  the  overwhelming  hosts 
of  Persia.  After  Thermopylae,  the  mountains  retire  a  few  miles 
from  the  coast;  they  are  now  no  longer  known  as  Oeta,  but  bear 
the  names  first  of  Cnemis,  then  of  Ptoum,  then  of  Messapium. 
After  the  last-named  height,  they  sink  down  to  insignificance  oppo- 
site to  Chalcis  and  the  narrows  of  the  Euripus.  The  land  between 
this  mountain  range  and  the  Euboean  Strait  v/as  held  by  the 
Locrians,  known  sometimes  as  Hypocnemidian,  from  the  mountain 
Cnemis  under  which  they  dwelt,  sometimes  as  Opuntian,  from  the 
name  of  their  chief  town.^  The  qualifying  epithet  was  necessary 
to  distinguish  them  from  their  kindred,  the  Ozolian  Locrians, 
who  lived  further  to  the  south  on  the  shores  of  the  Corinthian 
Gulf. 

Parallel  on  the  whole  to  Oeta  and  its  daughter  ranges  lies  the 
other  great  mountain-system  of  Central  Greece.  This  is  the  chain 
of  which  Parnassus,  Helicon,  and  Cithaeron  are  the  three  chief 
links.  It  runs  along  the  shore  of  the  Corinthian  Gulf,  to  which, 
however,  it  never  approaches  so  closely  as  does  Oeta  to  the  Gulf  of 
Malis.  By  far  the  most  important  height  in  this  range  is  Par- 
nassus, a  great  mountain  mass,  rising  to  eight  thousand  feet  above 
the  sea,  whose  buttresses  spread  far  out  on  every  side,  and  make 
an  almost  impassable  barrier  between  Phocis,  the  land  to  its  east, 
and  Ozolian  Locris,  the  country  which  faces  its  western  slopes. 
Parnassus  is  the  most  central  peak  in  Greece ;  the  view  from  its  sum- 
mit is  by  far  the  widest  that  can  be  obtained  in  the  whole  country, 
embracing  as  it  does  everything  that  lies  betvv'een  Thessaly  and 
Arcadia,  the  mouth  of  the  Corinthian  Gulf  and  the  southern  heights 
of  Attica.  In  one  of  the  recesses  of  the  southern  face  of  Parnassus 
lay  the  site  of  the  great  oracle  of  Delphi,  the  spot  which  the  Greeks 

2  Geographers  have  erred  in  distinguishing  the  Locrians  into  separate  tribes 
of  Hypocnemidians  and  Opuntians.  The  names  were  used  indifferently  for  the 
same  people. 


12  GREECE 

regarded  as  the  center  of  the  whole  world  {oii<pa).o<s  yf^?).  The 
sanctity  of  the  place  gathered  round  a  mysterious  cave,  overhung 
by  beetling  rocks  and  with  a  rugged  gorge  at  its  feet.  Here  dwelt 
the  power  of  Apollo,  and  here  the  richest,  if  not  the  most  magnifi- 
cent, temple  of  Greece  rose  in  his  honor. 

From  Parnassus  the  Phocian  hills  run  eastward  till  they  rise 
again  into  the  height  of  Helicon,  a  mountain  less  vast  and  rugged 
than  Parnassus,  though  it  attains  the  respectable  height  of  5700  feet. 
Helicon  was  noted  for  the  pleasant  groves  and  springs  which  diver- 
sify its  eastern  slopes,  and  its  green  recesses  were  fabled  to  be  the 
favorite  haunt  of  the  Muses.  The  spurs  which  Helicon  sends  out 
rise  on  the  east  into  the  ridge  of  Cithaeron,  a  long  line  of  crest 
which  continues  the  general  direction  of  the  chain  of  which  it  forms 
part,  but  no  longer  runs  along  the  side  of  the  Gulf  of  Corinth ; 
striking  inland  it  forms  the  boundary  between  Attica  to  the  south 
and  Boeotia  to  the  north. 

Pent  in  between  Oeta,  Cnemis,  and  Ptoum  on  the  one  side,  and 
Parnassus,  Helicon,  and  Cithaeron  on  the  other,  lies  the  second 
largest  plain  of  Greece.  It  is  composed  of  the  valleys  of  the  rivers 
Cephissus  and  Asopus,  and  runs  from  northwest  to  southeast,  with 
a  length  of  some  thirty  miles,  and  a  breadth  that  varies  from  twt)  to 
ten.  The  Cephissus  valley  was  held  by  three  different  races.  At 
its  source  among  the  roots  of  Oeta  dwelt  the  little  tribe  of  the 
Dorians  in  their  four  villages.  Its  central  course  flowed  through 
the  land  of  the  Phocians,  whose  towns  studded  the  slopes  on  either 
side  of  its  banks.  Phocis  also  included  the  rugged  country  to  the 
south  of  the  Cephissus  valley,  taking  in  Delphi  and  the  spurs  of  Par- 
nassus, and  reaching  to  the  Corinthian  Gulf.  But  its  heart  and 
strength  lay  in  the  Cephissus  valley,  the  only  part  of  its  territory 
which  was  fertile  enough  to  support  a  considerable  population. 
After  leaving  the  land  of  the  Phocians,  the  Cephissus  valley  is  con- 
tracted for  a  moment  by  spurs  which  run  south  from  Cnemis.  In 
the  narrowest  part  of  its  course,  where  it  is  no  more  than  two  miles 
broad  and  almost  deserves  the  name  of  a  pass,  lies  Chaeronea,  the 
first  town  in  Boeotia ;  it  is  almost  as  truly  the  gate  of  Central  Greece 
as  Thermopylae,  and  has  always  formed  the  natural  spot  at  which 
an  invader  coming  from  the  north  has  been  resisted.  Behind  Chae- 
ronea lies  the  great  Boeotian  plain,  divided  between  the  basins  of 
the  Cephissus  and  the  Asopus.  It  is  a  fertile  region,  whose  soil 
consists  of  a  rich  mold,  and  produces  the  most  abundant  crops  in 


THE    I'KIF.STESS   OF   APOLLO   OX    THE   TRIPOD   AT    DELPHI 
Paiiiliiig    b\   Henry    Mutu- 


GEOGRAPHY  13 

Greece.  Boeotia  could  almost  compete  with  Thessaly  in  the  num- 
ber and  size  of  its  cities,  of  which  seven  of  larger  and  seven  of 
smaller  size  *  formed  the  national  league,  a  body  whose  union  con- 
trasts strongly  enough  with  the  discord  that  always  prevailed  among 
the  Thessalians.  Therefore  the  Boeotian  League  was  generally 
powerful,  the  Thessalians  nearly  always  weak.  Orchomenus  domi- 
nates in  the  valley  of  the  Cephissus,  Thebes  in  that  of  the  Asopus ; 
in  early  times  the  former  was  the  most  important  town  in  the 
country;  but  from  the  seventh  century  B.C.  Thebes  exerted  a  marked 
predominance  over  all  her  neighbors. 

The  Asopus  succeeds  in  reaching  the  sea,  but  the  Cephissus 
and  all  the  other  minor  rivers  of  Boeotia  fall  into  Lake  Copais,  a 
broad  swampy  expanse  of  water,  possessing  no  natural  outlet  save 
some  subterranean  "  swallows "  which  communicate  with  the 
Euboean  Strait.  In  spite  of  the  labors  of  the  early  kings  of  Orcho- 
menus, who  for  a  while  drained  the  swamp  by  artificial  tunnels, 
Copais  was  the  bane  of  Boeotia.  Not  only  did  it  inundate  the 
meadows  of  Haliartus  and  Orchomenus,  but  its  marshy  exhalations 
made  the  air  of  the  whole  plain  thick  and  heavy.  In  summer  the 
climate  was  sultry  and  sweltering,  for  the  surrounding  mountains 
panned  in  the  warm  vapors  from  the  lake;  in  winter  the  fogs  and 
mists  lay  low  on  the  surface  of  the  land,  kept  off  the  sun,  and  caused 
a  degree  of  cold  unknown  in  neighboring  districts.  The  inhabitants 
of  the  breezy  upland  of  Attica  held,  probably  not  without  reason, 
that  the  oppressive  climate  of  Boeotia  made  those  who  dwelt  in  it 
dull,  heavy,  and  stupid.  Nevertheless,  the  land  produced  Hesiod, 
second  only  to  Homer  among  early  poets,  Pindar,  the  greatest  of 
lyric  poets,  and  Epaminondas,  the  noblest  patriot  of  Greece. 

The  ranges  of  Cithaeron  and  Parnes,  which  are  practically  con- 
tinuous, extend  right  across  the  peninsula  from  sea  to  sea,  running 
due  east  and  west.  From  their  western  end  projects  a  bold  moun- 
tain mass  named  Gereneia,  which  forms  the  sole  barrier  between  the 
Gulf  of  Corinth  and  that  of  Aegina,  and  stands  out  towards 
the  isthmus,  and  the  Peloponnese.  At  its  southern  end  Gereneia 
sinks  suddenly  down  from  five  thousand  feet  to  the  sea-level,  and 
looks  across  to  Oneium,  the  nearest  Peloponnesian  height,  which 
faces  it  at  a  distance  of  about  six  miles.     Between  them  lies  the 

4  These  were  Thebes,  Orchomenus,  Thespiae,  Tanagra,  Haliartus,  Coronea, 
and  Lebadea,  and  the  smaller  towns  of  Copae,  Pherae,  Mycalessus,  Acraephium, 
Anthedon,  Chaeronea,  and  Plataea. 


14  GREECE 

low  spit  of  land,  three  miles  and  a  half  broad,  which  forms  the 
actual  Isthmus  of  Corinth.  On  each  side  of  Gereneia  there  is  just 
room  for  a  road  to  crawl  between  the  hills  and  the  sea;  these  two 
paths,  the  one  overhanging  the  Corinthian,  the  other  the  Aeginetan 
Gulf,  meet  at  the  isthmus. 

From  the  base  formed  by  the  line  of  Cithaeron  and  Parnes  a 
triangular  tract  of  mountain  land  runs  due  south  into  the  sea.  Its 
western  side  is  washed  by  the  gulf  of  Aegina,  its  eastern 
by  the  Aegean.  This  is  the  district  of  Attica,^  "  the  shore 
land,"  the  most  famous  though  not  the  most  favored  of  the 
regions  of  Greece.  Its  backbone  is  formed  by  the  ranges  of 
Pentelicus  and  Hymettus,  but  a  quantity  of  minor  heights  cross 
it  in  all  directions.  Attica  is  mainly  composed  of  sloping  uplands, 
with  a  thin  ungrateful  soil  and  a  great  deficiency  of  water.  All 
its  streams,, with  one  exception,  shrink  away  and  disappear  in  the 
summer.  But  the  air  is  dry,  fresh,  and  breezy,  and  the  country 
includes  two  coast-plains  whose  fertility  almost  redeems  the  barren- 
ness of  the  highlands.  These  are  the  Thriasian  plain  in  the  west- 
ern corner  of  the  land,  and  the  plain  of  Athens  which  lies  around 
the  capital,  and  is  watered  by  Cephissus,  the  one  perennial  river  of 
Attica. 

The  little  country  of  Megaris,  named  from  Megara,  its  one 
town,  is  practically  a  part  of  Attica  :  it  was  severed  from  the  rest  by  a 
political  and  not  a  natural  boundary ;  it  consisted  of  that  portion  of 
the  slopes  of  Cithaeron  and  Gereneia  which  was  detached  from 
Attica  by  the  Dorian  invasions  of  the  tenth  century  B.C. 

Before  proceeding  to  describe  Peloponnesus,  it  is  necessary  to 
mention  the  great  island  of  Euboea,  which  lies  like  a  breakwater  in 
front  of  Locris,  Boeotia,  and  Attica,  separating  them  from  the  open 
Aegean.  The  island  is  formed  by  a  great  mountain  ridge,  which 
prolongs  the  range  of  Othrys  beyond  the  waters  of  the  Straits  of 
Artemisium.  Euboea  presents  to  that  sea  an  unbroken  line  of  iron- 
bound  crags  without  a  single  harbor;  but  its  inner  face  has  a  very 
different  character,  containing  some  fertile  coast-plains,  and  afford- 
ing safe  anchorage  in  numerous  bays.  It  was  on  this  sheltered 
western  side  of  the  island  that  Chalcis  and  Eretria,  two  flourishing 
commercial  cities  famed  for  their  activity  in  colonizing,  were  situ- 
ated. Opposite  Chalcis  was  the  Euripus,  a  narrow  passage  where 
the  width  of  the  Euboean  Strait  shrinks  down  to  forty  yards,  and 
'  From  dxTij' J  broken  shore. 


GEOGRAPHY  15 

could  be  spanned  by  a  bridge  thrown  out  from  the  Boeotian  main- 
land, 

Peloponnesus,  which  the  geographer  Strabo  happily  described 
as  "  the  citadel  of  Greece,"  the  innermost  and  strongest  of  the  suc- 
cessive lines  of  defense  which  the  Hellenic  lands  present  to  an 
invader,  is  very  distinct  in  character  from  the  lands  to  its  north. 
The  barrier  which  the  Gulfs  of  Corinth  and  Aegina  interpose  be- 
tween it  and  central  Greece  corresponds  to  an  entire  change  in  the 
mountain  system  of  the  country.  The  isthmus  which  joins  it  to 
Megaris  is  not  a  link  connecting  the  main  ranges  of  the  two  dis- 
tricts ;  it  is  a  mere  spit  of  flat  land  not  rising  to  more  than  two  hun- 
dred feet  above  sea-level  at  its  highest  point.  Hence  it  has  been 
from  the  earliest  days  the  ambition  of  engineers  to  bridge  this  neck 
by  a  ship-portage  or  to  pierce  it  by  a  canal. 

The  two  chief  mountain  chains  which  give  Peloponnesus  its 
shape  run  at  right  angles  to  each  other.  The  first  lies  close  to 
its  northern  coast,  and  forms  the  boundary  between  Achaia  on  the 
shore  and  Arcadia  in  the  upland.  The  longest  ridge  of  this  range 
is  known  as  Erymanthus,  but  its  highest  point  was  Cyllene,  which 
rises  to  7700  feet.  No  common  name  exists  for  the  whole  chain, 
which  we  may,  however,  call  the  mountains  of  Northern  Arcadia. 
High  up  on  the  southern  declivity  of  one  of  its  crests  was  the  only 
important  waterfall  of  Greece,  the  mysterious  Styx.  Plunging  from 
an  inaccessible  cliff  into  an  equally  inaccessible  chasm,  it  was  re- 
garded with  wonder  and  awe  by  the  Greeks,  who  fabled  that  it 
fell  straight  into  the  underworld,  and  became  the  river  of  Hades. 
Starting  from  the  center  of  the  North  Arcadian  Range  and  running 
at  right  angles  to  it,  north  and  south,  was  the  second  great  mountain 
chain  of  Peloponnesus.  This  forms  the  watershed  between  the 
rivers  which  flow  west  to  the  Ionian  Sea,  and  those  which  run  east 
to  the  Aegean  or  lose  themselves  in  the  limestone  clefts  of  the  Arca- 
dian plateau.  The  range  is  known  as  Maenalus  in  its  central, 
and  Taygetus  in  its  southern,  course.  The  culminating  peak  of 
Taygetus  is  the  highest  summit  of  Peloponnesus;  it  slightly  surpasses 
Cyllene,  and  reaches  7900  feet.  This  range  runs  far  out  into  the 
sea,  and  its  final  precipice,  the  rocky  promontory  of  Taenarum,  forms 
the  southernmost  point  of  Peloponnesus. 

All  along  its  course  the  chain  of  Maenalus  and  Taygetus  is 
accompanied  by  a  parallel  range  not  much  inferior  to  it  in  impor- 
tance, which  faces  it  at  a  distance  varying  from  ten  to  fifteen  miles 


16  GREECE 

to  the  east.  The  dominating  heights  of  this  range  are  Parthenium 
and  Parnon,  of  which  the  latter  reaches  6400  feet.  Like  Taygetus, 
this  mountain  throws  out  a  long  headland  into  the  sea,  the  point  of 
which  was  Cape  Malea,  whose  gusty  cliffs  were  long  the  terror  of 
Greek  seamen. 

Three  cross  ranges  join  the  range  of  Maenalus  and  Taygetus  to 
that  of  Parthenium  and  Parnon  at  three  different  points.  Each  of 
these  cuts  off  a  highland  valley,  between  the  main  chains,  from  its 
natural  exit  to  the  sea.  Hence  are  formed  the  isolated  upland 
hollows  of  Pheneus,  Stymphalus,  and  Mantinea,  whose  only  drain- 
age is  by  "  swallows  "  which  discharge  their  waters  on  to  the  slope 
above  the  Aegean. 

Peloponnesus  falls  into  seven  main  divisions.  The  first  of  these, 
starting  from  the  northeast,  is  the  district  just  within  the  isthmus, 
where  the  hills  are  still  low,  and  are  only  commencing  to  rise  up 
towards  the  great  chain  of  Northern  Arcadia.  Corinth,  a  town 
perched  on  a  height  just  within  the  isthmus,  gives  its  name  to  the 
hilly  country  around  its  base ;  a  few  miles  further  to  the  w'est  Sicyon 
and  its  territory  occupy  the  valley  of  the  little  river  Asopus.^  The 
slopes  above  Corinthia  and  Sicyonia  were  owned  by  two  yet  smaller 
states,  the  cities  of  Philius  and  Cleonae,  each  occupying  a  mere 
hollow  in  the  hills. 

Southward  of  Phlius  and  Cleonae,  a  mountain  range  running 
east  and  west  forms  the  boundary  of  Argolis.  This  country  falls 
into  two  parts :  round  the  town  of  Argos,  a  few  miles  inland  from 
the  Aegean,  lies  a  small  coast-plain  forming  the  territory  of  that 
place.  East  of  this  tract  a  bold  peninsula  runs  out  into  the  sea, 
broad  enough  to  hold  three  considerable  cities,  Epidaurus,  Troezen, 
and  Hermione,  which  were  generally  independent  of  Argos  and 
maintained  a  vigorous  life  of  their  own.  Over  against  Epidaurus, 
a  few  miles  out  in  the  Saronic  Gulf,  lay  Aegina,  a  rugged  island,  but 
long  the  abode  of  a  race  of  bold  and  enterprising  seamen  who  made 
their  narrow  home  well-nigh  the  greatest  of  the  commercial  marts 
of  Greece. 

South  of  Argolis  lay  Laconia,  a  region  completely  bisected  by 
the  range  of  Parnon  and  dominated  l)y  that  of  Taygetus.  The  land 
between  Parnon  and  the  sea  is  rough  hillside,  barely  fit  for  habita- 
tion ;  but  the  valley  between  Parnon  and  Taygetus,  the  basin  of  the 
Eurotas,  the  "  hollow  Lacedaemon  "  of  Homer,  is  of  a  very  different 
*5  To  be  carefully  distinguished  from  its  Boeotian  namesake. 


GEOGRAPHY  IT 

character.  It  abounds  in  rich  corn-land  and  plantations  of  vines 
and  mulberries,  and  is  well-nigh  the  most  fertile  region  of  Pelopon- 
nesus. Spreading  over  four  low  mounds  in  the  middle  of  the  plain, 
lay  the  straggling  and  unfortified  town  of  Sparta,  before  whose 
citizens  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants  of  Laconia  bowed  in  subjection. 

The  lofty  and  well-wooded  spurs  of  Taygetus  divide  Laconia 
from  Messenia,  the  southwestern  angle  of  Peloponnesus.  Like 
Laconia,  it  consists  of  a  rocky  coast-land  and  a  central  plain.  The 
valley  of  the  Pamisus,  the  river  of  Messenia,  is  even  more  fertile 
than  that  of  the  Eurotas ;  facing  full  to  the  south,  it  bears  trees  and 
fruits  of  an  almost  tropical  character,  such  as  no  other  part  of 
Greece  can  rear  to  maturity.  Above  it  rises  the  peak  of  Ithome,  the 
citadel  of  Messenia.  The  mountainous  seaboard  of  the  country  is 
mainly  notable  as  possessing  the  only  good  port  of  the  western 
coast  of  Peloponnesus,  the  land-locked  bay  of  Pylos,  famous  in  the 
Peloponnesian  war,  and  yet  more  famous  in  our  own  century  for 
the  sea-fight  of  Navarino. 

A  little  river  called  the  Neda  divides  Messenia  from  the  triple 
region  known  as  Elis.  This  land  consists,  firstly,  of  Triphylia,  the 
district  between  the  Neda  and  the  Alpheus,  a  tract  into  which  the 
hills  of  Arcadia  run  out  westward,  and  which  served  as  a  refuge  to 
the  broken  remnants  of  several  tribes  who  had  lost  their  original 
homes.  Secondly,  of  Pisatis,  the  plain  along  the  northern  bank  of 
the  Alpheus,  a  fertile  region  which  contained  the  great  national 
sanctuary  of  Olympia.  Thirdly,  of  Elis  proper,  the  western  slopes 
of  Mount  Erymanthus  and  its  offshoot  Pholoe,  a  land  of  flocks  and 
herds,  whose  inhabitants  lived  in  scattered  villages,  ignorant  of  the 
city  life  which  was  habitual  in  Greece.  The  Eleians  at  an  early 
date  conquered  their  neighbors  of  the  Pisatis  and  Triphylia,  and 
in  spite  of  many  revolts  held  them  in  constant  subjection.  The 
coast  of  Elis  is  a  long  and  almost  harborless  stretch  of  sand-hill  and 
lagoon,  a  fact  which  explains  why  a  people  possessing  many  miles 
of  seaboard  never  became  seamen.  Twelve  miles  from  its  western- 
most cape  lies  Zacynthus,  a  considerable  island  whose  mountains 
prolong  the  chain  which  had  started  in  Leucas  and  Cephallenia. 

Northeast  of  Elis,  and  running  eastward  as  far  as  the  boun- 
daries of  Sicyon,  lay  Achaia,  pressed  in  between  the  Corinthian 
Gulf  and  the  mountains  of  Northern  Arcadia.  It  was  composed  of 
a  number  of  small  coast-plains,  each  containing  its  own  town.  Off- 
shoots of  the  great  range  to  the  south  cut  off  valley  from  valley,  so 


18  GREECE 

that  communication  was  easier  by  sea  than  by  land.  Nevertheless, 
the  Achaians  were  a  united  people ;  they  were  bound  together  by  an 
ancient  league,  and  did  not  indulge  in  the  internecine  wars  too 
common  in  other  parts  of  Greece. 

The  only  Peloponnesian  district  remaining  to  be  described  is 
Arcadia.  This  region  forms  the  center  of  the  peninsula,  and  is  the 
only  part  of  it  which  does  not  own  an  outlet  to  the  sea.  Arcadia 
falls  into  two  halves.  Its  eastern  side  is  composed  of  the  three 
upland  hollows,  pent  in  between  the  ranges  of  Maenalus  and  Par- 
thenium.  of  which  we  have  already  spoken  in  describing  the  moun- 
tain system  of  Peloponnesus.  Of  these  isolated  valleys  the  southern- 
most is  by  far  the  most  important:  it  contained  the  twin  cities  of 
Mantinea  and  Tegea,  famous  throughout  Greek  history  for  their 
bitter  quarrels  and  constant  warfare;  they  were  by  far  the  largest 
and  most  civilized  of  the  Arcadian  states.  The  western  half  of 
Arcadia  consists  of  a  number  of  valleys  drained  by  the  tributaries 
of  the  Alpheus,  the  largest  river  of  Peloponnesus.  These  streams, 
separated  from  each  other  by  a  multitude  of  small  ranges  in  their 
upper  course,  run  together  from  all  sides  to  meet  at  Heraea.  the 
westernmost  Arcadian  town,  whose  territory  overlooks  the  plain  of 
Olympia.  The  land  drained  by  them  forms  a  rough  hilly  plateau, 
about  two  thousand  feet  above  sea-level,  intersected  by  wooded  hills 
in  all  directions.  Here  dwelt  a  number  of  small  tribes,  some  of 
which  had  built  themselves  towns,  while  others  lived  scattered  in 
isolated  villages.  All  were  equally  jealous  of  their  independence, 
and  impatient  of  any  closer  union  with  their  neighbors.  They 
were  by  far  the  poorest  and  least  civilized  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Peloponnesus,  and  from  an  early  date  are  found  leaving  their 
mountain  homes  in  bands,  to  serve  as  mercenary  soldiers  in  more 
favored  countries. 

Facing  the  eastern  coast  of  Greece  a  multitude  of  islands  rise 
from  the  Aegean.  They  are  the  mountain-tops  of  two  lost  ranges, 
which  once  prolonged  the  Euboean  and  Attic  hills  out  into  the 
open  sea.  Andros,  Tenos,  and  Myconos  are  isolated  continuations 
of  Euboea ;  Ceos,  Cythnos,  and  Seriphos  are  links  starting  from  the 
Attic  promontory  of  Sunium.  A  little  farther  south  the  two  chains 
meet  in  Naxos  and  Paros,  the  most  important  islands  of  the  whole 
group.  The  Greeks  called  this  archipelago  the  Cyclades,  conceiving 
of  them  as  lying  in  a  circle  around  the  island-sanctuary  of  Apollo 
in  Delos.     South  of  the  Cyclades  lay  the  Sporades,  "  the  scattered 


GEOGRAPHY 


19 


ones,"  composed  of  the  volcanic  islands  of  Melos,  Thera,  and  Cimo- 
los,  with  the  more  distant  Astypalea  and  Carpathus.  Sporades  and 
Cyclades  aHke  are  "  mountain-tops  afloat  at  sea  " ;  each  of  them  has 
its  peak  rising  to  two  thousand  or  three  thousand  feet  in  height,  and 
sinking  down  into  the  water  in  more  or  less  steep  slopes.  Well- 
nigh  all  possessed  safe  harbors  to  tempt  the  cautious  mariner  of 
early  times  to  push  on  from  point  to  point  till  he  found  himself  in 
Asia. 

Last  of  all  Greek  lands  we  reach  the  long  island  of  Crete.  It 
lies  across  the  mouth  of  the  Aegean  like  a  great  breakwater,  with 
one  face  looking  out  on  Cyrene  and  Africa,  while  the  other  fronts 
toward  the  Cyclades.     It  is  a  true  Greek  land  in  its  geographical 


character;  mountains  starting  from  the  central  peak  of  Ida  cut  it 
up  into  countless  valleys,  where  more  than  forty  independent  towns 
found  space  to  exist.  Political  union  was  never  established  among 
them  except  perhaps  in  the  prehistoric  empire  of  Minos ;  they  were 
always  occupied  in  ignoble  civil  wars,  and  when  Cretans  are  heard 
of  outside  their  own  island  during  historical  times,  it  is  always  in 
the  character  of  mercenaries,  and  generally  in  that  of  traitors  to 
their  employer. 


Chapter  II 

AEGEAN   CIVILIZATION:    ORIGIN    OF   THE   GREEK 
NATIONALITY 

NOT  many  years  ago  the  only  materials  which  existed  for 
the  reconstruction  of  the  early  history  of  the  Aegean  lands 
were  the  foundation-legends  of  the  various  Greek  tribes 
and  cities.  Of  these  an  enormous  bulk  has  survived,  long  and 
intricate  tales  of  the  gods  and  heroes,  whereof  some  are  early  and 
interesting,  while  others  are  the  vain  inventions  of  a  late  and  literary 
age.  The  scholars  of  fifty  years  ago  were  wont  to  take  this  mass 
of  contradictory  and  inconsequent  stories,  many  of  them  mere  scraps 
of  folk-lore  common  to  all  Aryan  nations,  and  to  endeavor  to  piece 
them  together  into  a  sort  of  history.  They  got  rid  of  the  mere 
mythology,  sifted  out  the  legends  that  were  obviously  modern,  and 
tried  to  arrive  at  valid  historical  facts  from  the  comparison  of  what 
remained. 

The  present  generation  is  able  to  approach  the  problem  by  an 
entirely  different  path,  that  of  archaeological  research.  Greece  and 
its  islands  have  long  been  open  to  the  explorer  and  excavator,  and 
even  Asia  Minor  is  no  longer  the  unknown  land  that  it  was  in  1850. 
The  first  pioneers  of  archaeology  were  more  set  on  discovering  the 
lost  temples  and  statues  of  the  historic  days  of  Greece  than  on 
solving  the  riddles  of  her  dark  ages.  But  the  harvest  of  "  finds  " 
from  the  great  centers  of  Hellenic  life  in  the  fifth,  fourth,  and  third 
centuries  before  Christ  has  not  been  quite  so  rich  as  was  hoped, 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  an  unexpected  flood  of  light  has  been 
thrown  on  the  culture  and  civilization  of  those  earlier  times  of  which 
nothing  was  known  before,  save  from  the  vague  and  often  deceptive 
tribal  legends  of  which  we  have  already  spoken. 

It  used  to  be  supposed  that  Greece,  in  common  with  the  rest  of 
Southern  Europe,  was  in  a  condition  of  utter  barbarism  till  some- 
where about  the  twelfth  or  thirteenth  century  before  Christ.  The 
Hellenes  of  historical  days  had  worked  out  for  themselves  an 
elaborate  but  erroneous  system  of  chronology,  by  which  the  origin 

20 


AEGEAN    CIVILIZATION  21 

2000-1250  B.C. 

of  mankind  and  the  days  when  gods  dwelt  on  earth  and  mixed 
freely  with  men  were  placed  at  a  comparatively  late  date.  The 
historian  Hecataeus  (500  B.C.)  caused  amusement  to  his  younger 
rival  Herodotus  by  maintaining  that  he  was  only  the  sixteenth 
in  descent  from  a  god;  the  contemporary  kings  of  Sparta,  whose 
genealogy  was  considered  the  most  certain  base  of  time-calculation 
in  Greece,  took  themselves  back  to  their  divine  ancestor  Heracles  in 
twenty-two  or  twenty-four  generations :  that  deity  therefore  was 
conceived  to  have  been  flourishing  at  Thebes  or  Argos  somewhere 
about  1250  B.C. 

In  face  of  such  views  it  is  astonishing  to  find  clear  evidence 
that  civilization  of  a  sort  was  to  be  found  in  Greece  and  the  Greek 
islands  as  early  as  2000  B.C.,  and  that  powerful  and  wealthy 
monarchies,  whose  buildings  we  can  survey,  and  whose  golden 
jewels  we  may  handle,  were  existing  in  those  regions  about  fifteen 
or  fourteen  centuries  before  the  birth  of  Christ  But  the  excavators 
who  have  revealed  this  ancient  world  to  us,  though  they  have  solved 
one  set  of  puzzles,  have  set  another  before  us.  The  main  problem 
is  now  to  discover  whether  these  ancient  peoples  of  the  Aegean  were 
or  were  not  the  ancestors  of  the  Greeks  of  the  historic  age.  We 
may  be  reasonably  certain  that  the  inhabitants  of  Greece  in  1000  B.C. 
were  the  same  race  which  ultimately  gave  to  the  world  Aeschylus 
and  Pheidias  and  Socrates.  But  what  is  to  be  said  of  their 
predecessors  of  the  year  1500  or  2000  B.C.? 

The  earliest  traces  of  human  occupation  in  the  Aegean  lands  go 
back  to  the  black  darkness  of  the  so-called  "  neolithic  age  "  when 
mankind,  still  unacquainted  with  metals,  could  use  nothing  but  stone 
or  wood  for  its  tools  and  utensils,  and  dwelt  in  rude  huts,  using 
rough  sun-dried  pottery  for  its  scanty  household  needs.  With  these 
dim  races  of  the  third  millennium  before  Christ  we  need  not  concern 
ourselves.  But  in  their  successors  we  are  much  more  interested; 
recent  exploration  has  shown  that  already  by  the  year  2000  b.c.  a 
certain  measure  of  civilization  had  been  developed  on  the  northern 
shore  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  (contrary  to  what  might  have  been 
expected)  it  was  not  a  mere  borrowing  from  the  culture  of  Egypt 
or  Babylonia,  but  a  genuine  and  native  growth  of  Europe.  Traces 
of  it  are  found  from  the  northwestern  corner  of  Asia  Minor  as  far 
as  the  south  of  Spain.  It  was  evidently  not  the  heritage  of  one 
single  race,  but  spread  abroad  among  many.  They  were  far  above 
the  level  of  savages :  they  possessed  numerous  flocks  and  herds,  tilled 


22  GREECE 

2000-1250  B.C. 

the  earth  for  many  crops,  and  had  mastered  the  rudiments  of  naviga- 
tion. They  employed  very  ornamental  and  highly  glazed  pottery  of 
peculiar  shape  and  color.  They  made  free  use  of  the  metals  copper 
and  gold,  the  latter  for  their  ornaments,  the  former  for  their  tools 
and  weapons.  Quite  at  an  early  stage  of  their  culture  they  came  to 
know  of  tin.  and,  mixing  it  with  the  copper,  produced  the  more  hard 
and  durable  bronze.  The  fact  that  tin  had  to  be  brought  from  dis- 
tant Spain  is  sufficient  in  itself  to  show  how  far  their  trade  extended. 
There  are  signs  that  it  worked  deep  into  central  Europe,  as  far 
as  the  Danube  and  even  the  Baltic;  for  from  that  sea  alone  can 
have  come  the  amber  which  is  not  infrequently  found  in  exca- 
vations. 

We  need  not  concern  ourselves  with  those  of  the  races  of  the 
"  Bronze  Age  "  who  dwelt  west  of  the  Adriatic,  and  from  whom 
came  the  Etruscans,  the  Sicels,  and  the  Iberians  of  later  times. 
Our  concern  is  with  those  of  the  basin  of  the  Aegean,  some  of 
whom  were  destined  to  be  among  the  progenitors  of  the  Greek 
nationality.  They  have  left  plenty  of  traces  behind  them ;  in  posi- 
tions carefully  chosen  for  their  strength,  on  isolated  hills,  or  rock- 
girt  plateaus,  or  mounds  in  a  marsh,  their  citadels  rose,  girt  with 
"  Cyclopean  "  walls  of  unhewn  stone  piled  up  without  the  aid  of 
mortar,  or  of  sun-dried  bricks.  At  the  end  of  their  time  they 
were  learning  to  use  squared  blocks  and  regular  masonry  for  their 
gates  and  towers.  Such  fortresses  may  be  found  from  Troy  on  the 
northwest,  where  city  under  city  lies  buried  four  or  five  deep, 
through  the  islands  to  Continental  Greece,  where  Orchomenus, 
Mycenae,  and  Tiryns  have  each  given  a  rich  harvest  to  the  explorer. 
Crete  was,  at  a  very  early  age,  the  home  of  a  civilization  which  seems 
to  have  been  ahead  of  that  of  the  more  northern  regions.  The  race, 
or  races,  which  inhabited  it  were  in  touch  with  Egypt  and  Libya, 
and  sailed  very  far  afield.  The  Greeks  of  historic  days  showed 
some  dim  memory  of  this  early  time,  when  they  spoke  in  their 
legends  of  Minos  the  Cretan  as  being  the  first  king  who  won  a 
supremacy  at  sea.  The  most  astonishing  feature  of  this  early  cul- 
ture in  Crete  is  that  its  peoples,  as  recent  discoveries  have  proved, 
were  in  possession  of  not  only  one  but  two  forms  of  writing.  They 
probably  worked  (like  the  Cypriots  of  a  later  age)  by  signs  repre- 
senting syllables  rather  than  by  a  proper  alphabet,  and  their  inscrip- 
tions are  wholly  unintelligible  to  us,  and  likely  to  remain  so.  Their 
northern  neighbors  seem  not  to  have  been  far  advanced  enough 


AEGEAN    CIVILIZATION  23 

2000-1250  B.C. 

to  need  such  a  complicated  system,  and  no  traces  of  writing  have 
been  discovered  anywhere  save  in  Crete. 

Now  that  we  have  before  us  the  evidence  for  the  existence  of 
this  weaUhy  and  widespread  "Aegean  Cuhure  "  (as  it  has  been 
called),  it  is  interesting  to  bring  to  bear  upon  it  the  evidence  of 
the  early  Greek  traditions,  for  the  Hellenes  of  historical  days  had 
not  wholly  forgotten  the  existence  of  races  that  dwelt  before  them 
on  the  soil  which  they  had  made  their  own.  In  the  dim  epoch  to 
which  their  earliest  memories  or  imaginings  carried  them  back,  we 
learn  that  the  "  Pelasgi "  were  occupying  the  land.  The  name 
is  found  not  only  in  the  Hellenic  districts  of  Europe,  but  spread 
far  and  wide  in  Italy  and  Asia  Minor.  The  myths  in  which  the 
Greek  embodied  his  conceptions  of  ancient  history  make  Pelasgus, 
the  eponymous  hero  of  the  race,  now  a  king  of  Argos,  now  a  dweller 
in  Thessaly ;  but  Attica  and  Arcadia  also  claimed  a  Pelasgic  ancestry, 
and  the  coast-land  on  the  Hellespont  and  the  islands  of  the  north- 
eastern Aegean  were  full  of  Pelasgic  traditions :  even  the  Mes- 
sapians  and  Oenotrians  of  Southern  Italy  were  ascribed  to  the 
same  kinship.  So  widely  scattered  is  the  name,  so  different  were 
the  tribes  of  historic  days  to  whom  a  Pelasgic  origin  was  attributed, 
that  it  is  evidently  necessary  to  believe  that  the  name  represents  an 
epoch  rather  than  a  nationality.  The  Pelasgian  is  the  dimly  remem- 
bered predecessor  whose  existence  was  brought  home  to  the  Greek 
by  the  barrows  and  hill-altars  which  dotted  his  land,  by  the  Cyclo- 
pean walls  of  prehistoric  citadels  and  the  unintelligible  names  of 
ancient  sites.  If  he  was  akin  to  them,  he  hardly  knew.  The  most 
clear-sighted  of  Greek  historians  held  that  his  ancestors  were  a  cer- 
tain section  of  the  Pelasgi,  who  had  developed  into  a  separate 
nationality  by  falling  under  a  special  set  of  influences,  which  we  call 
Hellenic  because  tradition  associated  them  with  the  name  of  Hellen 
the  Thessalian  and  his  sons.  Yet  it  is  noteworthy  that  Athenian 
legends  speak  of  a  time  when  the  Ionian  and  the  Pelasgian  dwelt 
together  in  Attica,  occupying  the  same  land,  but  sharply  divided  by 
racial  differences.  Moreover,  the  scattered  fragments  of  races  with 
whom  the  Pelasgian  name  lingered  as  late  as  the  fifth  century,  the 
islanders  of  Lemnos  and  Imbros,  the  Crestonians  on  the  coast  of 
Macedon,  the  hillmen  of  the  Hellespontine  Olympus,  were  distinctly 
"  Barbarians  " ;  their  language  was  unintelligible  to  the  Greek,  and 
yet  they  had  been  dwelling  beside  him  for  centuries,  and  experienced 
the  influences  of  continual  contact  with  him.     They  differed  from 


24i  GREECE 

2000-1250  B.C. 

the  Hellene  not  as  a  civilized  and  an  uncivilized  member  of  the 
same  nation  differ — not  as  an  Athenian  differed  from  an  Aetolian, 
for  example — but  wholly  and  entirely,  as  much  as  did  a  Theban 
from  a  Lydian. 

Taking  "  Pelasgian,"  therefore,  to  cover  in  a  vague  way  all  the 
races  which  dwelt  in  prehistoric  days  in  the  Aegean  lands,  and 
shared  in  the  Aegean  civilization,  we  must  conclude  that  those 
tribes  with  whom  the  name  lingered  longest  were  not  necessarily 
allied  in  blood  to  the  whole  of  the  primitive  population  of  Greece. 
They  rather  survived  as  a  separate  people  because  they  were  the 
least  akin  of  all  the  early  inhabitants  of  the  land  to  the  newly  de- 
veloping nationality  of  the  Hellenes.  How  many  and  various  those 
inhabitants  were  it  is  easy  to  see,  yet  by  far  the  larger  number  of 
them  finally  amalgamated  into  a  single  nationality. 

The  Greek  mind  loved  to  personify  periods  and  movements  in 
concrete  human  form,  therefore  the  first  steps  made  out  of  the  dim 
Pelasgic  anarchy  are  ascribed  to  a  single  prince,  the  founder  of  the 
Hellenic  name;  and  the  groups  of  kindred  clans  which  at  last 
began  to  draw  together  are  said  to  have  been  called  from  his 
descendants,  Aeolus  and  Dorus,  Ion  and  Achaeus.  Similarly  a 
still  more  transparently  mythical  son  of  Hellen,  the  hero  Amphic- 
tyon,  was  said  to  have  been  the  first  to  teach  tribe  to  dwell  peacefully 
by  tribe,  by  instituting  "  Amphictyonies,"  associations  of  neighbor- 
ing clans  for  trade  and  mutual  protection.  The  names  of  the  four 
mythical  descendants  of  Hellen  of  whom  legend  has  most  to  tell 
deserve  especial  notice.  Ion  seems  to  typify  the  union  of  the  mari- 
time tribes,  who,  though  they  dwelt  beside  many  alien  races,  Carians, 
Tyrrhenians,  and  others,  may  be  roughly  defined  as  occupying  the 
islands  and  the  coast-land  of  Greece.  Dorus  is  the  representative  of 
the  tribes  of  the  northern  mountains — the  latest  comers  among  the 
wandering  races — who  were  still  living  in  the  uplands  of  IMacedon 
and  Epirus.  Achaeus  and  Aeolus  were  the  supposed  fathers  of  the 
bulk  of  the  Hellenic  race,  who  dwelt  scattered  up  and  down  the 
peninsula  from  Thessaly  to  Taenarum ;  but  of  the  two  the  sons  of 
Achaeus  are  represented  as  the  more  warlike  and  enterprising :  they 
build  up  the  first  powerful  states,  and  undertake  the  first  great 
national  expeditions  of  Hellas.  The  name  of  Aeolus  covers  a  vast 
number  of  obscure  clans  and  tribes ;  all,  in  fact,  of  the  later  dwellers 
in  Greece  who  were  neither  Ionian,  Dorian,  nor  Achaean  claimed 
Aeolus  as  their  progenitor,  and  he  was  ascribed  as  father  to  races 


AEGEAN    CIVILIZATION  25 

2000-1000  B.C. 

as  distinct  as  the  Thessalian  and  the  Aetohan,  the  Phocian  and  the 
Boeotian.  All  the  more  backward  and  uncivilized  Hellenic  tribes 
were  said  to  be  of  his  kin,  though  with  them  were  joined  some  of 
the  most  famous  clans,  the  primitive  inhabitants  of  Corinth  and 
Orchomenus,  Messene  and  Sparta, 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  during  the  course  of  the  second 
millennium  before  Christ  the  Aegean  lands  were  filled  with  an 
eddying  stream  of  tribes  of  very  various  blood  and  name,  but  all 
sharing  more  or  less  in  the  common  "  Aegean  Culture."  There  was 
no  vestige  as  yet  of  the  feeling  which  afterwards  drew  such  a  clear 
line  between  "  Hellene  "  and  "  Barbarian,"  and  the  ancestors  of 
the  tribes  which  were  one  day  to  become  Greeks  mixed  as  much 
or  as  little  with  the  alien  as  with  each  other.  We  may,  as  it 
seems,  draw  evidence  on  this  point  from  the  Eg}'ptian  monuments. 
In  the  thirteenth  and  twelfth  centuries  before  Christ  the  realm  of 
the  Pharaohs  was  much  vexed  by  piratical  tribes  from  the  northern 
seas,  who  made  descents  on  the  Delta  sometimes  on  their  own 
behalf,  sometimes  in  alliance  with  the  Libyans.  Rameses  II.  (circ. 
1250  B.C.)  mentions  among  his  enemies  tribes  called  the  Dardana, 
the  Luku,  and  the  Yavana.  His  son  Merenpthah  was  troubled  by 
the  raids  of  the  Aquayasha,  the  Turusha,  and  the  Luku  in  the  end  of 
the  thirteenth  century.  A  little  later  Rameses  HI.  (circ.  1170) 
was  fighting  with  Danaona,  Tokari,  and  others.  These  pirates 
from  "  the  lands  of  the  sea  "  and  "  the  north  "  seem  to  represent 
well-known  tribes  of  Asia  Minor,  Dardanians,  Lycians,  Teucrians, 
and  so  forth,  in  alliance  with  the  lonians,  Achaians,  and  Danai,  the 
ancestors  of  the  Hellenes.  The  Turusha  are  probably  the  Tyrrhen- 
ians of  the  Aegean,  whom  we  have  already  mentioned.  All  united 
to  plunder  fertile  Egypt  in  the  same  way  that  Pict  and  Saxon,  Van- 
dal and  Alan,  Goth  and  Hun,  came  six  hundred  years  later  to  batten 
together  on  the  carcass  of  the  moribund  Roman  Empire. 

How  the  Hellenic  racial  eleme'nt  in  the  Aegean  lands  came  to 
absorb  or  expel  the  rest  we  cannot  tell.  We  know  that  it  came 
drifting  down  from  the  north  into  Epirus  and  Thessaly,  and  thence 
into  central  and  southern  Greece.  But  whether  it  won  its  way  by 
conquest  or  by  peaceful  amalgamation  it  is  hard  to  say.  Probably 
some  of  the  aboriginal  "  Pelasgic "'  tribes  were  conquered  and 
absorbed,  as  the  Celts  of  Devon  or  the  Severn  valley  were  conquered 
and  absorbed  by  the  Saxons.  In  other  regions  the  newcomers  may 
have  settled  alongside  with  the  elder  race  without  much  friction, 


26  GREECE 

2000-1000  B.C. 

and  have  gradually  imposed  their  language  and  customs  upon  it. 
Such  was  the  way — to  take  a  modern  parallel — in  which  the  western 
lowlands  of  Scotland  became  an  English-speaking  community. 
When  we  find  in  ancient  Greece  tribes  which  claimed  to  be  "  autoch- 
thonous," to  have  held  their  soil  from  time  immemorial,  and  to 
spring  from  the  land  itself  as  the  children  of  some  one  of  the  gods 
by  the  nymph  of  a  local  hill  or  fountain,  we  may  suspect  that  the 
incoming  Hellenic  element  among  them  was  small,  and  that  the 
old  blood  was  predominant.  Such  was  the  case  in  Arcadia,  and  in 
the  more  famous  Attic  peninsula.  The  Athenians  used  to  tell  how 
their  native  king  had  kindly  received  Ion,  the  grandson  of  Hellen, 
and  given  him  a  settlement  in  the  land.  Probably  the  story  had  so 
much  of  truth  in  it  that  the  Cranao-Pelasgi  of  Attica  received  as 
visitors,  and  not  as  conquerors,  the  Ionic  settlers  who  were  ulti- 
mately to  Hellenize  them,  and  make  them  a  part  of  the  body  cor- 
porate of  historic  Greece.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  all  over  the 
Aegean  lands  the  racial  character  of  the  population  must  have  dif- 
fered enormously  between  valley  and  valley  and  between  island  and 
island.  All  finally  received  a  common  language,  and  were  more  or 
less  assimilated  in  customs  and  religion.  But  below  the  surface 
there  must  have  been  infinite  variety ;  not  only  did  the  proportion  of 
Hellenic  blood  that  ran  in  the  veins  of  one  tribe  vary  in  quantity 
from  that  found  in  another,  but  the  non-Hellenic  element  in  each 
may  have  been  furnished  by  any  one  of  a  dozen  "  Pelasgic  "  races 
of  different  racial  afifinities.  Hence  came  the  striking  differences 
both  in  bodily  appearance  and  in  national  character  that  were  to  be 
found  between  the  citizens  of  the  States  of  historic  Greece. 

Before  quitting  the  discussion  of  these  early  times,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  speak  of  one  influence  on  the  Aegean  peoples  on  which  much 
stress  was  laid  in  the  past.  Of  all  the  external  peoples  with  whom 
the  dwellers  in  Greece  and  her  islands  had  to  deal,  the  Phoenicians 
seem  to  have  made  the  most  impression  on  tradition.  Before  the 
excavations  of  the  last  fifty  years  revealed  to  us  the  real  character 
of  the  prehistoric  civilization  of  the  Aegean,  it  was  customary  to 
ascribe  all  the  beginnings  of  culture  to  the  merchants  of  Tyre  and 
Sidon.  This  theory  was  wrong,  for  that  culture  was  mainly  Euro- 
pean and  native,  not  Semitic  and  imported.  Nor  is  it  correct  to 
think  of  the  Phoenicians  as  possessing  a  monopoly  of  sea-going 
trade;  the  peoples  with  whom  they  dwelt  were  also  seafarers,  and 
not  unfrequently  pirates  too.     It  is  most  unlikely  that  there  was 


AEGEAN    CIVILIZATION  27 

2000-1000  B.C. 

ever  a  time  when  the  merchants  from  the  East  controlled  the  main 
bulk  of  the  Aegean  commerce.  But  they  must  have  possessed  a 
fair  share  of  it.  Pushing  on  by  Cyprus  and  Asia  Minor  to  the 
Cyclades  and  the  Grecian  mainland,  this  enterprising  race  searched 
out  every  bay  and  mountain  for  their  natural  products.  On  the 
coasts  of  Laconia  and  Crete  they  dredged  up  the  shell-fish  which 
gave  them  the  much-prized  purple  dye.  In  Thasos  they  discovered 
silver,  and  turned  up  whole  mountains  from  top  to  bottom  by  their 
mining  operations.  Where  the  land  had  no  mineral  riches  to 
develop,  they  opened  up  trade  with  the  inhabitants,  and  exchanged 
the  fine  fabrics  of  Eastern  looms  and  the  highly-wrought  metal 
work  of  the  Levant  for  corn,  slaves,  wine,  pottery,  and  timber,  and 
such  other  commodities  as  the  natives  could  produce.  To  facilitate 
their  traffic  they  built  fortified  factories  on  well-placed  islands  and 
promontories.  They  did  not  usually  penetrate  far  from  the  coast, 
but  the  legend  of  Cadmus  of  Thebes  seems  to  show  at  least  one 
case  in  which  the  Phoenician  trader  pushed  boldly  inland,  and  built 
his  settlement  twelve  or  fifteen  miles  from  the  sea.  On  the  coast- 
line, however,  the  names  of  Phoenician  trading-posts  are  found  in 
every  district ;  the  eastern  shore  of  Greece  is  more  thickly  sown 
with  them  than  the  western,  but  even  in  distant  Epirus  and  at  the 
furthest  recess  of  the  Gulf  of  Corinth  we  find  conclusive  proofs 
of  the  presence  of  these  ubiquitous  merchants.  The  strongest  set- 
tlements of  the  Phoenicians  were  always  on  the  islands.  Crete  was 
particularly  haunted  by  them,  Cythera,  too,  the  island  which  lay 
opposite  Laconia,  and  formed  the  center  of  the  purple-fishery,  was 
entirely  in  their  hands.  So  was  Melos  in  the  Cyclades,  and  Thasos 
in  the  northernmost  bay  of  the  Aegean. 

From  the  Phoenicians  the  inhabitants  of  Greece  obtained  one 
invention  far  more  valuable  than  the  perishable  luxuries  from 
Egypt  or  Assyria,  which  formed  the  main  staple  of  their  traffic. 
This  was  the  Alphabet,  the  "  letters  of  Cadmus,"  as  the  Hellenic 
peoples  called  them,  in  gratitude  to  the  legendary  Tyrian  hero,  who 
was  supposed  to  have  invented  them.  The  old  Cretan  script  had 
never  rooted  itself  down  in  Greece ;  the  clumsy  syllabary  which  the 
Cypriots  had  adopted  never  had  any  vogue  outside  their  island,  but 
the  "  Cadmean  letters  " — superior  in  every  way  in  convenience  and 
simplicity — conquered  the  whole  Hellenic  world.  Different  dis- 
tricts used  many  slightly  varied  shapes,  but  contemporaries  can 
never  have  had  any  serious  difficulties  in  reading  each  other's  writ- 


28  GREECE 

circa  900  B.C. 

ing.  The  date  of  the  general  adoption  of  the  system  is  difficult  to 
determine ;  it  was  not  very  early,  however,  and  probably  fell  some- 
where in  the  tenth  or  ninth  century  before  Christ, 

In  another  sphere  the  trace  of  Phoenician  influence  on  the 
early  Greeks  is  unmistakable.  The  religion  of  the  Hellenes  bears 
clear  marks  of  contact  with  that  of  the  Tyrians  and  Sidonians.  To 
the  vague  native  Pantheon,  while  it  was  still  in  a  state  of  flux,  the 
strangers  added  Aphrodite  and  Heracles — the  goddess  of  fertility 
and  reproduction,  and  the  god  of  travel  and  laborious  endeavor. 
Aphrodite  is  a  modification  of  the  eastern  Ashtaroth,  Heracles  of 
jMelcarth.  Greek  fable  told  how  the  goddess  rose  from  the  sea 
opposite  the  Phoenician  island  of  Cythera,  and  how  the  god  was 
born  in  the  Phoenician  city  of  Thebes.  Ashtaroth  was  worshiped 
in  the  East  with  grossly  licentious  rites,  and  the  trace  of  her  sensual 
character  was  never  eliminated  from  the  Greek  deity,  who  was  ever 
the  patroness  of  lust  rather  than  love.  Melcarth,  the  city-god  of 
Tyre,  a  deity  who  was  worshiped  as  an  inventor  and  civilizer,  was 
turned  by  the  Greeks  into  an  ever-toiling  hero,  who  purged  the 
land  from  wild  beasts  and  robbers,  and  wrought  mighty  works  of 
drainage  or  road-making.  His  name,  oddly  enough,  was  preserved 
under  the  form  Melicertes  in  the  Saronic  Gulf,  where  the  Corin- 
thians worshiped  him  as  a  young  sea-god  quite  different  in  char- 
acter and  attributes  from  Heracles. 


Chapter    III 

HOMERIC    POEMS,   AND  THE   GREEKS   OF  THE 
HOMERIC  AGE 

WE  have  seen  that  long  ages  before  any  authentic  history 
of  the  Hellenes  begins,  we  can  glean  some  idea  of  their 
life  and  manners  from  the  evidence  of  monuments  and 
excavations,  and  also — though  here  the  greatest  caution  must  be 
used — from  their  inexhaustible  store  of  myths  and  legends.  But 
the  twilight  glimmer  which  these  researches  shed  upon  the  pre- 
historic age  in  Greece  is  sheer  darkness  compared  with  the  flood 
of  light  which  is  thrown  upon  it  by  the  immortal  works  which  pass 
under  the  name  of  Homer. 

The  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  are  a  pair  of  lengthy  epic  poems 
which  deal  with  two  episodes  in  a  great  war.  The  Greek  princes, 
we  read,  were  once  gathered  together  by  Agamemnon,  King  of 
Mycenae,  the  greatest  sovereign  in  the  land,  to  aid  him  in  an 
expedition  to  Asia.  Paris,  son  of  Priam  the  Teucrian,  had  stolen 
Helen,  the  wife  of  Agamemnon's  brother  Menelaus,  and  borne  her 
ofif  to  his  father's  city  of  Troy.  The  Greeks  accordingly  sailed  to 
punish  the  seducer,  and  beleaguered  Troy  for  ten  long  years.  But 
it  is  not  the  whole  of  the  war  with  which  the  Iliad  deals.  "  Achilles, 
a  prince  of  Phthiotis,  was  the  bravest  and  most  beautiful  of  the 
whole  Greek  host,  but  he  was  proud  and  headstrong,  and  was  drawn 
into  a  bitter  quarrel  with  King  Agamemnon.  He  retired  from  the 
battle,  and  sat  sullenly  brooding  in  his  tent  till  the  Greeks  were 
driven  back  to  the  water's  edge,  and  his  own  bosom  friend  Patroclus 
had  been  killed  by  the  Trojan  prince  Hector.  Then  Achilles  arose 
in  wrath,  hunted  down  and  slew  Hector,  and  shut  up  the  Trojans 
within  the  walls  of  their  city."  Such  is  the  plot  of  the  Iliad ;  for, 
though  abounding  in  digressions,  it  takes  the  wrath  of  Achilles 
as  its  main  subject,  and  it  ends  when  that  wrath  has  been  dissipated. 
Similarly,  the  Odyssey  tells  how,  when  Troy  had  been  taken, 
Odysseus  of  Ithaca,  King  of  the  Cephallenians,  was  driven  from  his 
home-course  by  storms,  wandered  for  years  lost  in  the  waste  of 

29 


30  GREECE 

waters,  but  returned  at  last  to  reclaim  his  kingdom,  and  save  his 
wife  from  the  horde  of  suitors  who  had  laid  claim  to  her  hand. 

For  the  last  century  critics  have  been  disputing  whether  there 
was  ever  an  individual  named  Homer;  whether  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey  are  the  work  of  the  same  author;  whether  each  of  these 
poems  might  not  itself  be  broken  up  into  separate  and  independent 
lays ;  whether  the  poems  were  written  in  Asia  or  in  Europe ;  whether 
their  date  lies  as  early  as  the  fourteenth  century  before  Christ,  or 
as  late  as  the  sixth ;  whether  editors  and  commentators  have  tam- 
pered much  or  little  with  their  text.  With  these  questions  we  need 
not  trouble  ourselves  to  deal  at  length.  The  internal  evidence  of 
the  poems  tells  on  the  whole  in  favor  of  regarding  them  as  unities, 
not  as  patchwork  compositions  of  varying  date.  Small  inconsis- 
tencies may  here  and  there  be  pointed  out  between  two  books  of 
the  Iliad,  or  between  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey;  but  the  results  in 
that  direction  of  the  assiduous  research  of  three  generations  of 
critics  are  ludicrously  scanty.  Probably  additions  have  been  made 
to  the  original  bulk  of  the  poems,  but  they  were  certainly  not  built 
up  by  a  dozen  different  poets,  of  various  shades  of  intelligence  and 
taste,  writing  separate  lays  which  were  then  pieced   together. 

We  are  bound  to  confess  that  we  have  no  authentic  traditions 
concerning  the  biography  of  Homer;  nevertheless,  it  is  quite 
rational  to  hold  that  a  single  author  of  transcendent  genius  com- 
posed the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  We  may  concede  that  the  poems 
were  not  committed  to  writing  until  a  very  late  date;  yet,  remem- 
bering the  portentous  powers  of  memory  of  the  "  rhapsodist "  in 
days  ere  writing  existed,  we  need  not  therefore  believe  that  inter- 
polations and  gaps  are  to  be  found  in  every  section  of  the  two 
works.  Corruptions  of  the  text  may  exist,  but  it  is  not  necessary 
for  that  reason  to  give  up  the  whole  of  the  poems  as  valuable 
authority  for  the  prehistoric  age.  But  it  is  most  important  to 
arrive  at  some  notion  of  the  date  of  their  composition.  Before  we 
can  use  them  as  authorities  for  the  life  of  early  Greece,  we  must 
indicate  the  reasons  which  tell  in  favor  of  their  extreme  antiquity. 
It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  demonstrate  that  they  were  in  existence 
in  the  sixth  century,  though  one  modern  critic,^  at  least  was  pre- 
pared to  put  them  down  to  the  age  of  Pericles  and  the  Athenian 
supremacy!  It  is  more  to  the  point  to  state  that  a  succession  of 
other  poems,  obviously  written  as  supplements  and  continuations 

1  See  the  preface  to  Dr.  Paley's  "  Iliad." 


THE    SACK    OF    TKOV 
Painting    by    G.'orgc    Ku,-liL'grosse 


HEROICAGE  31 

of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  were  already  current  by  the  end  of  the 
seventh  century.  These  works,  known  as  the  "  Cyclic  "  poems,  be- 
cause they  rounded  off  the  tale  of  Troy  into  a  perfect  whole  (ki;kAos), 
were  very  different  in  character  from  their  prototypes.  They  have 
unfortunately  been  lost  without  exception,  so  that  we  cannot 
minutely  examine  their  contents,  but  enough  is  known  of  them  to 
show  that  they  were  deliberately  written  to  bridge  the  period  be- 
tween the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  and  to  provide  a  suitable  preface 
and  epilogue  to  them.  Greek  literary  tradition  placed  Lesches  and 
Arctinus  and  the  other  "  Cyclic  "  authors  between  800  b.  c.  and  650 
B.  c. ;  but  though  the  dates  are  very  probably  correct,  we  have  no 
means  of  corroborating  them.  Still,  whenever  the  Cyclic  poems 
were  written,  we  know  that  their  authors  had  already  the  Iliad  and 
the  Odyssey  before  them  as  established  standards  and  models. 

The  internal  evidence  is,  after  all,  the  one  safe  criterion  for 
assigning  a  date  to  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  The  authentic  stage 
of  Greek  history  commences  with  the  conquest  of  Peloponnesus  by 
the  Dorians,  and  the  colonization  of  the  coasts  of  Asia  by  Ionian 
and  Aeolian  settlers.  Of  neither  of  these  all-important  series  of 
events  is  there  the  slightest  trace  in  Homer.  Of  course,  we  cannot 
venture  to  take  it  for  granted  that  he  would  have  dwelt  upon  them 
largely,  if  he  had  lived  and  written  after  they  had  happened.  But 
we  may  safely  say  that  he  would  have  betrayed  himself  by  some 
casual  allusions  which  implied  a  knowledge  of  them.  An  unsophis- 
ticated bard,  singing  to  an  uncritical  audience  in  a  primitive  time, 
could  not  possess  such  a  keen  historical  and  archaeological  sense  as 
to  avoid  all  anachronisms.  Virgil,  a  learned  and  careful  author 
in  a  literary  age,  continually  indulged  in  them.  The  Greek  trage- 
dians, though  using  the  form  of  composition  where  it  is  most 
important  to  preserve  accuracy  of  surroundings,  were  constantly 
betraying  their  modern  knowledge.^  Is  it  possible  that  Homer 
alone  should  have  been  preserved  from  this  failing?  Could  he 
have  reconstructed  from  tradition  the  political  geography  of  a 
Greece  which  had  long  passed  away,  and  was  replaced  in  his  own 
day  by  an  utterly  different  arrangement  of  tribes  and  cities?  "  The 
Homeric  map  of  Greece,"  as  has  been  happily  observed,^  "  is  so 
different  from  the  map  of  the  country  at  any  later  time,  that  it  is 

-Take  as  obvious  examples  Sophocles,  Oed.  Co/.,  695,  which  makes  Pelopon 
nesus  already  Dorian  a  generation  before  the  Trojan  war;  or  Euripides,  y?A:., 
285,  which  puts  Thessalians  in  the  Peneus  valley  at  a  still  earlier  date. 

'  By  Professor  Freeman,  in  his  "  Historical  Geography." 


32  GREECE 

inconceivable  that  it  should  have  been  invented  at  any  later  time." 
If  Mycenae,  for  example,  had  not  been  a  very  important  town  in 
prehistoric  days,  nothing  that  ever  happened  in  tangible  times 
would  have  induced  an  author  to  describe  it  as  a  seat  of  empire. 
Who  in  any  century  after  chronology  begins  would  have  had  oc- 
casion to  use  the  names  Dorian  and  Ionian  only  once  each  in  forty- 
eight  long  books,  while  he  spoke  of  Achaians  seven  hundred  and 
fourteen  times?  Who,  in  describing  the  incidents  of  war  in  the 
Troad,  could  have  refrained  from  all  indications  of  the  fact  that  in 
his  own  day  the  Troad  was  to  become  Greek  territory — the  one 
event  in  its  history  that  would  have  interested  his  hearers  above 
any  other?  Yet,  in  spite  of  this  silence,  it  is  now  a  common  thing 
to  say  that  the  Homeric  poems  were  written  to  encourage  chiefs 
who  claimed  a  descent  from  Agamemnon  to  persevere  in  a  war 
against  the  Trojans  of  a  later  age.  It  is  hard,  therefore,  to  believe 
that  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  were  written  at  any  date  after  the  great 
migrations  of  the  eleventh  century.  Yet  already,  when  the  poet 
w^as  writing,  the  war  of  Troy  was  ancient  history,  which  he  might 
freely  adorn  with  the  flowers  of  his  imagination.  He  does  not 
write  as  a  contemporary,  but  as  a  distant  spectator.  In  his  own 
day,  as  he  complains,  a  degenerate  race  had  not  a  tithe  of  the 
strength  of  the  ancestors  whose  deeds  he  celebrated.  If  there  ever 
was  a  siege  of  Troy,  then  we  need  not  go  to  Homer  for  its  details. 
All  is  too  unreal  in  those  poems,  where  the  gods  walk  the  earth 
in  mortal  form,  and  a  single  hero  can  put  to  flight  a  whole 
army. 

The  real  and  unique  value  of  the  Homeric  poems  lies  in  the 
picture  of  the  social  life  of  Greece  which  they  place  before  us.  The 
picture  may  be  somewhat  idealized,  but  we  cannot  doubt  that  it 
fairly  reproduces  the  general  characteristics  of  the  age  which  pre- 
ceded the  Dorian  migration.  For  the  poet  of  a  primitive  age, 
though  he  may  frame  from  his  imagination  both  his  plot  and  his 
characters,  cannot  falsify  the  social  atmosphere  in  which  they  move. 
If  we  strip  from  them  their  purely  magical  and  supernatural 
episodes,  romances  of  the  heroic  cast  such  as  the  "  Morte  Arthur," 
or  the  "  Nibelungenlied,"  or  the  "  Chanson  de  Roland,"  are  valu- 
able authority  for  both  the  thought  and  the  customs  of  the  days  in 
which  their  authors  lived;  they  may  idealize  the  contemporary 
morals  and  manners,  but  they  do  not  contradict  them.  So  is  it 
with  Homer :  he  painted  the  state  of  society  which  was  natural  and 


HEROIC    AGE  33 

habitual  to  his  hearers,  though  he  may  have  drawn  his  individual 
characters  to  a  more  heroic  scale  than  the  men  of  his  own  day  could 
attain. 

In  Homer's  day,  then,  Greece  was  occupied  by  a  number  of 
tribes  who  recognized  each  other  as  kinsmen,  though  they  had  not 
yet  found  any  distinctive  national  title  for  themselves.  The  name 
"  Hellene  "  was  as  yet  only  applied  to  the  inhabitants  of  Phthiotis, 
and  was  not  employed  to  describe  the  whole  Greek  race;  there  is, 
too,  no  correlative  word  "  barbarian  "  to  express  that  which  is  not 
Hellenic.  The  confederate  Greeks,  if  mentioned  together,  are 
usually  called  Achaians,  from  the  name  of  their  most  celebrated 
tribe;  much  less  frequently  they  are  called  Argeians  and  Danai — 
words  properly  applicable  only  to  the  contingent  of  King 
Agamemnon.  It  will  be  noticed  that  Achaian  and  Danaan  are  pre- 
cisely the  names  applied  to  the  Greek  invaders  of  the  Delta  by  the 
Egyptian  monuments. 

The  most  distinguished  states  in  Homer's  poems  may  be  briefly 
mentioned.  Agamemnon,  the  grandson  of  Pelops,  was  the  greatest 
sovereign,  and  possessed  an  undisputed  preeminence  among  his 
fellows.  He  ruled  Argolis,  but  dwelt  not  at  Argos  but  at  "  wealthy 
Mycenae,"  a  newer  city  on  the  hills  above  the  Argive  Plain.  All 
Northern  and  Eastern  Peloponnesus  more  or  less  clearly  acknowl- 
edged him  as  suzerain.  Chief  among  his  vassals  was  Diomedes, 
who  ruled  the  old  town  of  Argos  and  the  small  district  immediately 
around  it,  Menelaus,  Agamemnon's  brother  and  second  self,  held 
a  realm  composed  of  Laconia  and  Eastern  Messenia.  Nestor  of 
Pylos  ruled  the  Caucones,  whose  state  embraced  Western  Messenia 
and  Southern  Elis.  Northern  Elis  formed  the  far  less  important 
and  celebrated  kingdom  of  the  Epeians.  Beyond  the  isthmus  the 
most  distinguished  state  was  Phthiotis,  ruled  by  Achilles,  the  hero 
of  the  Iliad.  The  Cadmeians  of  Thebes  and  the  Minyae  of  Orcho- 
menus  had  also  a  prominent  position;  so  had  the  Cephallenians  of 
the  Western  Islands,  whose  king  was  Odysseus  of  Ithaca.  On  the 
other  hand,  some  of  the  greatest  Greek  states  of  later  days  take  a 
very  inferior  part  in  the  Iliad :  Corinth  and  Athens  are  especially 
unimportant.  Megara,  Larissa,  Delphi,  Olympia,  are  apparently 
as  yet  non-existent  places.  The  Cyclades  are  not  in  Greek  hands; 
but  Crete  and  Rhodes  contain  a  wholly  or  partially  Greek  popula- 
tion, and  form  the  outposts  of  the  race.  We  need  not,  of  course, 
take  seriously  the  names  and  individualities  of  the  kings  of  the 


34  GREECE 

Iliad;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  good  reason  to  beheve  that 
their  states  represent  the  existing  reahties  of  Homer's  day. 

The  Homeric  kingdoms  were  "  patriarchal  monarchies  with 
well-defined  prerogatives,"  as  Thucydides  happily  observes.*  The 
kingly  house  was  always  believed  to  descend  more  or  less  remotely 
from  the  gods,  and  to  derive  its  power  from  the  gift  of  Heaven. 
So  Homer  sings  of  the  royal  scepter,  the  symbol  of  Agamemnon's 
sovereignty :  **  Hephaestus  wrought  it  for  Zeus,  and  Zeus  gave  it 
to  his  messenger  Hermes,  to  deliver  to  Pelops  the  tamer  of  steeds, 
and  Pelops  again  gave  it  to  Atreus,  the  shepherd  of  the  people,  but 
Atreus  dying  left  it  to  Thyestes  rich  in  flocks ;  and  from  Thyestes, 
again,  it  passed  to  be  borne  by  Agamemnon,  that  he  might  rule 
over  many  islands  and  all  Argos."  The  kingly  power  was  not 
strictly  hereditary  as  in  a  modern  state;  it  passed  from  father  to 
son  when  there  was  an  heir  of  full  age  and  approved  worth  to 
succeed  to  the  throne.  But  if  a  king  at  his  death  left  only  infant 
children,  or  if  the  natural  inheritor  was  notoriously  incompetent, 
the  succession  might  pass  to  a  brother  or  any  other  near  relative. 
And,  again,  if  a  king  lived  to  such  a  great  old  age  that  he  could 
not  any  longer  discharge  his  functions,  he  would  often  surrender 
them  to  his  heir  during  his  own  lifetime;  if  he  did  not,  there  was  a 
considerable  chance  of  his  being  despoiled  of  them  in  consequence 
of  popular  discontent. 

The  king  received  from  the  tribe  a  royal  palace,  an  ample 
share  of  public  land,  and  certain  fixed  dues  and  payments.  These 
went  with  the  office,  and  were  kept  distinct  from  the  ancestral 
property  of  the  royal  family.  His  functions  fell  into  three  heads — 
he  was  leader,  priest,  and  judge.  As  leader,  he  headed  the  host 
of  the  tribe  on  all  important  expeditions;  a  king  who  shirked  fight- 
ing would  not  have  been  tolerated  for  a  moment.  Arrayed  in 
brazen  armor,  he  rode  out  before  his  army  in  a  light  war-chariot, 
driven  by  a  chosen  squire.  His  nobles  attended  him  in  similar 
guise,  while  all  the  freemen  of  the  land  followed  on  foot,  armed  as 
each  could  provide  himself.  Cavalry  was  as  yet  unknown — a 
feature  equally  observable  on  the  monuments  of  contemporary 
Egypt,  and  a  clear  mark  of  the  early  date  of  the  Homeric  poems. 

As  judge,  the  king  sat  in  the  market-place  with  the  elders 
around  him,  and  heard  all  the  cases  which  his  people  brought  before 
him.     He  gave  decision,  not  in  accordance  with  law,  for  laws  did 

4  llarpixai  ^aatXt'iai  irzl  'pr^rul'i  yipaat. — Thuc.    i.    13. 


HEROIC    AGE  35 

not  yet  exist,  but  following  the  acknowledged  principles  of  right 
and  equity.  Each  suitor  spoke  on  his  own  behalf,  and  brought 
forward  his  witnesses ;  the  elders  delivered  their  opinions,  and  then 
the  king  rose,  scepter  in  hand,  and  gave  sentence. 

As  priest,  the  king  was  the  natural  intermediary  between  his 
people  and  Heaven.  He  embodied  the  unity  of  the  tribe,  and 
offered  sacrifice  in  its  behalf  as  being  its  representative.  Other 
priests  existed,  but  there  was  no  priestly  caste,  and  they  took  part 
like  other  men  in  the  ordinary  business  of  peace  and  war.  They 
were  attached  to  the  services  of  particular  deities,  and  presided  at 
the  temple  or  sacred  glebe  of  their  patron. 

The  king  kept  no  great  state;  his  personal  attendants  were 
few,  and  no  gorgeous  trappings  distinguished  him  from  his  nobility. 
He  might  be  seen  supervising  the  labors  of  the  harvest-field,  per- 
haps even  turning  his  own  hand  to  a  task  of  carpentry  or  smith- 
craft; for  manual  dexterity  was  as  esteemed  among  the  Greeks  of 
Homer  as  it  was  among  our  own  Norse  ancestors.  The  degrada- 
tion of  the  artisan  was  the  development  of  a  later  age.  As  the 
king  might  be  his  own  bailiff,  so  might  his  wife  be  seen  acting  as 
the  housekeeper  of  the  palace,  bearing  rule  over  the  linen-closet  and 
larder.  One  of  the  most  charming  episodes  of  the  Odyssey  intro- 
duces us  to  a  princess  engaged  in  the  homely  task  of  superintending 
her  maids  while  they  wash  the  soiled  clothes  of  the  palace.  Yet  the 
dignity  of  the  royal  house  did  not  suffer  in  the  least  from  the  way 
in  which  it  shared  in  the  toil  of  its  dependents. 

Next  below  the  king  in  the  Homeric  state  were  the  nobility, 
who  are  often  called  Baa  drjs<i^  "  princes,"  just  as  was  their  sovereign. 
They  were  composed  of  the  younger  branches  of  the  royal  house 
and  of  the  great  landowners  of  the  tribe.  The  king  summoned 
them  to  take  counsel  with  him  before  any  event  of  national  impor- 
tance ;  but,  though  he  listened  to  their  advice,  he  was  not  necessarily 
bound  to  follow  it.  Still  a  wise  prince,  seeing  how  all  his  power 
rested  on  the  general  loyalty  of  his  subjects,  and  not  on  his  own 
personal  strength  and  resources,  would  be  very  chary  of  running 
counter  to  his  nobility.  When  the  king  and  his  Boule  of  chiefs 
had  come  to  a  decision,  the  whole  body  of  freemen  were  summoned 
to  the  market-place;  the  nobles  declared  their  views,  and  the  king 
promulgated  his  degree.  The  crowd  might  manifest  its  approval  by 
shouts,  or  its  discontent  by  silence;  but  no  other  political  privilege 
was  in  its  power. 


36  GREECE 

The  main  body  of  freemen  was  composed  of  small  landowners, 
tilling  their  own  farms;  but  there  was  already  a  landless  class, 
Thetes,  who  worked  for  hire  on  the  estates  of  others.  The  bard, 
the  seer,  and  the  physician  formed  a  professional  class,  with  an 
established  position,  and  moved  about  freely  from  state  to  state. 
The  wayfarer  was  entitled  to  fair  treatment  and  hospitality;  the 
suppliant  was  harbored  and  protected — to  maltreat  him  was  one  of 
the  blackest  crimes  in  the  eyes  of  gods  and  men.  Public  amusements 
were  simple  and  healthy;  prominent  among  them  appear  already 
the  athletic  sports  which  were  the  delight  of  historic  Greece. 
Slavery  was  known,  and  the  kings  and  nobles  possessed  a  certain 
number  of  slaves  captured  in  war  or  bought  from  foreign  countries ; 
but  they  were  not  many,  nor  was  society  as  yet  debauched  by  the 
evils  that  beset  a  slave-holding  state.  The  class  itself  seems  to  have 
been  well  treated,  and  the  most  affectionate  relations  are  often 
found  existing  between  master  and  slave. 

To  complete  the  general  picture  of  the  state  of  society,  it 
remains  to  state  that  in  domestic  life  the  family  had  become  the  base 
of  organization.  Monogamy  was  universal.  It  is  only  among 
Trojans  and  other  aliens  that  polygamy  can  be  found.  A  high 
ideal  of  female  virtue  had  been  formed;  and  the  wives  and  sisters 
of  the  heroes  come  far  more  prominently  forward,  are  encompassed 
with  greater  respect,  and  play  a  larger  part  in  life  than  did  the 
secluded  women  of  historic  Greece. 

In  spite  of  the  way  in  which  all  ranks  in  society  share  in  the 
same  toils  and  pleasures,  a  strong  aristocratic  tone  pervades  the 
Homeric  atmosphere.  It  appears  in  the  importance  attached  to 
high  birth,  in  the  manner  in  which  a  single  armed  noble  can  drive 
whole  crowds  of  common  folk  before  him  in  battle,  in  the  dislike 
felt  to  the  interference  of  the  masses  in  politics.  ThersTtes,  the  one 
demagogue  of  the  Iliad,  is  represented  as  a  mean  and  despicable 
creature,  and  soundly  thrashed  as  a  reward  for  his  impertinence. 
But  Homer  no  doubt  sang  for  the  banquets  of  the  noble  and 
wealthy. 

In  contemplating  the  many  pleasing  features  of  the  prehistoric 
age  in  Greece,  we  must  not  forget  that  all  its  society  was  pervaded 
with  the  feeling  that  might  was  right.  The  plunder  of  weaker 
neighbors  was  the  habitual  employment  of  the  noblest  chiefs.  We 
hear  of  gross  brutalities  in  the  treatment  of  the  widow  and  the 
orphan  even  in  the  highest  families.     The  king's  prerogative  was 


HEROIC     AGE 


37 


often  used  for  the  purpose  of  selfish  plunder.  Piracy  was  so  habitual 
that  it  was  no  insult  to  ask  a  seafaring  stranger  whether  he  was  a 
pirate  or  a  merchant.  Homicide  was  frequent,  and  unresented  save 
by  the  kin  of  the  slain,  and  they  were  usually  to  be  propitiated  by 
a  fine  paid  as  the  price  of  blood.  Quarter  was  seldom  given  in  war, 
and  the  bodies  of  slain  enemies  were  mishandled  with  every  degrad- 
ing form  of  insult.  Human  sacrifices,  if  not  frequent,  were  not 
unknown.  It  was  only  a  limited  number  of  crimes,  such  as  ill 
treatment  of  a  suppliant,  gross  perjury,  or  the  murder  of  a  very 
near  relative,  that  were  held  to  be  really  offensive  to  the  gods. 

It  was,   then,  no  golden  age  that  Homer  painted,   but  the 
idealized  picture  of  the  actual  political  and  social  life  of  his  own  day. 


Its  exact  date  it  does  not  concern  us  to  determine;  suffice  it  to  say 
that  it  was  long  previous  to  the  composition  of  any  of  the  other 
existing  literary  monuments  of  the  Hellenic  race.  The  Iliad  and 
the  Odyssey  are  as  far  removed  from  later  works  by  their  antique 
methods  of  thought  and  expression  as  they  are  by  their  superior 
excellence. 


Chapter  IV 

RELIGION  OF  THE  GREEKS:    OLYMPIA  AND  DELPHI 

HOMER  and  Hesiod — a  poet  of  a  much  later  age,  and 
a  much  less  lofty  flight — are  credited  with  having 
collected  and  codified  in  their  works  the  religious 
system  of  the  Hellenes.  "  It  was  they,"  writes  Herodotus, 
"  who  settled  the  relationships  of  the  gods  to  each  other,  and 
fixed  their  names,  and  defined  their  attributes  and  occupations, 
and  described  their  visible  forms :  all  was  vague  before."  By  this 
we  are  to  understand  that,  in  the  fifth  century,  men  held  that  Homer 
and  Hesiod  had  formed  the  standard  collections  of  myths  and 
legends  concerning  the  gods,  to  which  divergent  local  beliefs  were 
afterwards  assimilated.  In  all  probability  there  is  much  truth  in 
this  view. 

The  inhabitants  of  Greece  in  the  Pelasgic  age,  as  Herodotus 
continues,  were  accustomed  to  offer  sacrifice  on  hill-tops  to  the  god 
of  the  sky,  whom  after-generations  called  Zeus;  they  also  believed 
in  many  vague  nature-divinities  for  whom  they  had  no  individual 
names,  though  they  called  them  Osoi^  or  "  ordainers."  Whether 
such  a  state  of  pure  nature-worship  ever  existed  we  have  no  real 
evidence,  for  it  is  certain  that  the  Greek  religion,  when  first  we 
catch  a  glimpse  of  it,  was  already  a  medley  of  many  divergent 
elements.  There  were  in  it,  it  is  true,  abundant  traces  of  nature- 
worship,  but  many  other  systems  were  fused  with  it.  Some  of 
these  were  low  forms  of  fetish-worship;  we  find  stocks  and  stones 
adored,  or  sacred  trees  and  aerolites  that  fell  from  heaven.  The 
cult  of  deified  ancestors  also  prevailed.  Moreover,  as  early  as  re- 
search can  penetrate,  a  strong  foreign  element,  borrowed  from  the 
Phoenicians,  was  already  incorporated  with  the  misty  creed  of 
Greece;  not  improbably  other  nations  too  have,  unknown  to  us, 
left  their  mark  upon  it. 

The  widest  divergences  existed  between  the  worship  of  the 
different  tribes.  Sometimes  they  knew  the  same  god  by  different 
names,  at  others  they  gave  the  same  names  to  two  tribal  deities 

38 


HOMER 
Ideal  bust   in   Bntisli   Mnsein 


RELIGION  39 

whose  characters  were  really  distinct.  The  horse-headed  Demeter  of 
Phigaleia  had  little  to  do  with  the  wheat-crowned  Demeter  of 
Eleusis ;  the  Zeus  of  Arcadia  had  very  different  attributes  from  the 
Zeus  of  Crete ;  Dionysus  the  wine-god,  and  Dionysus  the  god  of  the 
under-world,  were  once  distinct  enough ;  Poseidon  the  patron  of  the 
lonians,  who  presided  over  the  sea,  had  nothing  in  common  save 
the  name  with  the  Poseidon  of  Mantinea,  who  shook  the  world 
with  his  earthquakes.  The  more  we  inquire  into  local  legends,  the 
more  do  we  find  one  deity  assuming  the  shape  and  attributes  which 
Homer,  and  literary  tradition  following  him,  have  attributed  to 
another. 

Moreover,  in  importing  foreign  gods,  the  Greeks  were 
often  quite  reckless  in  identifying  the  new-comer  with  one  of  their 
divinities.  When,  for  example,  they  came  across  the  great  nature- 
goddess  of  Asia  Minor,  it  appeared  to  be  a  mere  matter  of  chance 
whether  they  called  her  Hera,  or  Artemis,  or  Aphrodite.  Familiar 
as  we  are  with  "  Diana  of  the  Ephesians,"  we  can  never  cease  to 
wonder  at  the  curious  accident  that  identified  Artemis,  the  virgin 
huntress  of  Arcadia,  with  the  many-breasted  '*  Mother  of  all 
things  "  whom  Asia  worshiped. 

The  superficial  assimilation  of  the  tribal  gods  must  have  been 
one  of  the  first  consequences  of  the  growing  feeling  of  nationality 
among  the  primitive  peoples  of  Greece.  How  it  came  to  pass  that 
the  Arcadian  learned  to  call  his  patroness  "  Despoina,"  by  the  name 
of  his  neighbor's  deity  Demeter;  how  the  Epidaurian  came  to 
identify  his  local  Auxesia  with  Persephone;  how  the  Cretan  ac- 
knowledged that  the  Britomartis  whom  he  worshiped  was  the  same 
as  Artemis — we  cannot  trace  in  detail.  But  the  fusion  and  identi- 
fication of  the  local  divinities  into  a  limited  number  of  clear,  definite 
divine  figures,  certainly  took  place. 

By  the  time  of  Homer  the  personal  identities  of  the  various 
gods  were  growing  clearer,  and  his  poems  enshrined  a  version  of 
their  characters  and  relations  with  each  other  which  became  the 
accepted  mythological  standard  for  future  ages.  Even  in  Homer's 
poems  the  personalities  of  the  gods  are  still  not  entirely  worked 
out ;  but  Hesiod  filled  up  Homer's  gaps  in  a  lengthy  "  Theogony," 
which  gave  a  genealogical  table  of  the  divinities,  and  summed  up 
the  whole  origin  of  the  universe. 

Of  course,  neither  Homer  nor  Hesiod  was  in  any  sense  the 
inventor  of  the  mythology  of  the  Greeks.     They  merely  codified 


40  GREECE 

the  creations  of  the  national  spirit.  Out  of  a  mass  of  heterogeneous 
behefs,  some  of  them  childish,  some  hideous,  some  immoral,  the 
Greek  mind  built  up  the  beautiful  structure  of  the  Olympian  re- 
ligion. The  anthropomorphism  which  saw  a  god  or  a  goddess  in 
every  grove  and  stream  and  hill,  the  gross  worship  of  stocks  and 
stones,  the  cruel  and  licentious  cults  borrowed  from  the  Phoenician, 
the  orgies  of  Phrygia,  were  all  shaped  into  a  beautiful,  if  complex, 
whole  by  the  genius  of  the  Hellenic  race. 

The  gods  as  we  find  them  in  Homer  and  his  successors  form  a 
polity  modeled  to  the  similitude  of  an  earthly  kingdom.  Zeus  is 
their  father  and  lord,  who  exercises  over  his  brethren  and  offspring 
the  same  sort  of  predominance  that  a  mortal  ruler  enjoyed  among 
his  nobles.  He  summons  the  gods  to  council,  and  promulgates  his 
decrees  in  their  assembly  just  as  Agamemnon  did  among  the  princes 
of  the  host  before  Troy.  Like  the  great  ones  of  earth,  the  gods 
enjoy  the  banquet  and  the  wine-cup,  the  song  and  dance.  Though 
they  are  immortal,  and  possessed  of  superhuman  beauty,  power,  and 
knowledge,  they  are  but  "  men  writ  large,"  with  all  men's  passions, 
evil  as  well  as  good,  reflected  in  them.  They  are  liable  to  jealousy, 
lust,  and  anger ;  they  stoop  to  deceit  and  fraud.  In  short,  they  are 
copies  on  a  vast  scale  of  the  Greeks  who  worshiped  them.  The 
gods  of  a  primitive  nation  always  reflect  the  national  character. 
The  peculiar  feature  of  the  Greek  mind,  which  expressed  itself  in 
the  national  mythology,  was  the  love  of  beautiful  and  noble  forms. 
Egypt  and  Assyria  might  worship  strange  allegorical  shapes,  half- 
man,  half-beast ;  the  savages  of  the  North  might  adore  demons  and 
hobgoblins ;  but  the  Greek  set  himself  to  reverence  the  perfection  of 
human  beauty. 

In  Homer's  time  the  Greek  religion  was  still  in  that  primitive 
stage  where  frankly  immoral  conduct  can  be  attributed  to  the  gods 
without  their  worshipers  being  shocked.  After-ages,  when  ethics 
had  been  developd,  were  ashamed  of  the  actions  of  their  deities, 
and  explained  or  allegorized  them  away.  Yet  already  in  the  Iliad 
and  the  Odyssey  we  can  trace  the  beginning  of  the  connection  be- 
tween religion  and  morality.  Perjury,  parricide,  oppression  of  the 
stranger,  rejection  of  the  suppliant,  move  the  wrath  of  the  gods, 
or  of  some  dim  power  behind  the  gods,  which  hates  evil  and  makes 
for  good. 

The  two  characteristically  Hellenic  divinities  in  the  Olympian 
circle  were  Athena  and  Apollo.     They  are  not  nature-powers,  but 


RELIGION  41 

impersonations  in  the  most  beautiful  human  fonns  of  the  perfection 
of  human  nature.  Athena  represents  the  triumph  of  intellect  over 
chaos.  She  is  the  warrior-goddess,  who  slays  the  earth-born  giants 
who  strove  to  overturn  creation.  She  is  the  patroness  of  the  arts 
and  handicrafts  which  rescue  mankind  from  savagery,  and  sur- 
round it  with  comeliness  and  comfort;  she  taught  the  husbandman 
to  plant  the  olive,  and  the  weaver  to  ply  the  shuttle.  As  the  pro- 
tector of  city-life,  she  fosters  the  arts  of  eloquence  and  good- 
counsel.  Unlike  the  majority  of  the  heavenly  host,  who  bear  about 
them  the  stain  of  Phoenician  license  or  aboriginal  grossness,  Athena 
is  severely  pure  and  chaste ;  she  is  intellect  unmoved  by  fleshly  lust, 
the  perfection  of  serene  unclouded  wisdom. 

Apollo  represents  another  side  of  idealized  human  nature — the 
moral  and  emotional,  as  opposed  to  the  intellectual.  He  is  the 
patron  of  music  and  poetry,  the  arts  which  raise  and  inspire  the 
soul ;  he  has  the  gift  of  prophecy,  the  intuitive  vision  into  the  future 
which  comes  to  the  inspired  mind.  His  votaries  are  not  guided  by 
keen  intellectual  insight,  as  are  the  favorites  of  Athena,  but  by  a 
divine  afflatus  which  carries  them  out  of  themselves,  and  fills  them 
with  superhuman  knowledge.  Above  all,  he  is  the  god  of  purifica- 
tion; he  has  the  power  of  healing  body  and  mind.  Not  only  can 
he  ward  off  disease,  but  he  can  cleanse  the  conscience-stricken  sup- 
pliant from  pollution  and  blood-guiltiness,  and  send  him  home 
purified.  As  the  prophet,  the  healer,  the  inspired  singer,  he  rep- 
resents those  aspects  of  perfected  humanity  which  are  omitted  in 
the  purely  intellectual  excellence  of  Athena. 

The  presence  of  the  gods  followed  the  Greek  wherever  he 
went.  Not  only  were  the  rivers  and  mountains  and  forests  among 
which  he  dwelt  haunted  each  by  its  particular  deity,  but  the  occupa- 
tions of  daily  life  were  carried  out  under  the  supervision  of  the 
gods.  To  sow  or  reap,  to  build  or  to  set  sail,  to  commence  a  cam- 
paign or  a  banquet,  without  having  first  propitiated  by  sacrifice 
or  libation  the  proper  divinity,  would  have  been  both  impious  and 
unlucky.  A  religious  sanction  was  required  for  the  pleasures  and 
relaxations  no  less  than  for  the  toils  and  duties  of  life.  Hence  it 
came  to  pass  that  such  public  amusements  as  theatrical  representa- 
tions and  gymnastic  contests,  which  in  modern  days  have  no  re- 
ligious connection  whatever,  were  in  Greece  under  the  direct  pat- 
ronage of  the  gods.  The  Greek  tragedy  was  the  development  of 
the  choral  dances  and  recitations  which  accompanied  the  worship 


42  GREECE 

of  Dionysus;  the  Greek  games  were  established  to  commemorate 
some  achievement  of  a  god  or  hero  in  ancient  days. 

Of  these  games — one  of  the  most  characteristic  features  of 
the  hfe  of  Greece — a  short  account  must  be  given.  It  was  deeply 
impressed  on  the  Hellenic  mind  that  the  display  of  the  strength  and 
beauty  of  the  human  frame  in  the  service  of  the  gods  was  eminently 
pleasing  to  Heaven.  Hence  came  the  institution  of  gymnastic  con- 
tests in  the  honor  of  various  divinities.  Poseidon  was  propitiated 
by  the  Isthmian  Games  at  Corinth,  Apollo  by  the  Pythian  at  Delphi. 
But  the  greatest  of  the  contests  of  Greece  was  that  which  was  held 
in  honor  of  the  Olympian  Zeus,  the  supreme  national  deity,  on 
the  banks  of  the  Alpheus,  by  the  sandy  shores  of  Elis.  At  first  the 
stadium  of  Olympia  only  witnessed  foot-races,  in  which  the  youth 
of  Elis  and  Pisatis  met  to  run  over  a  course  of  about  two  hundred 
yards,  and  to  contend  for  a  simple  crown  of  wild  olive.  But 
gradually  the  festival  became  more  widely  known ;  competitors — • 
first  from  other  districts  of  Peloponnesus,  then  from  the  whole 
Greek  world, — began  to  appear,  and  the  number  and  variety  of  the 
games  were  increased,  till  they  included  all  kinds  of  running,  wrest- 
ling, boxing,  leaping,  quoit  and  spear  play,  and  contests  for  the 
horsemen  and  the  charioteer.  From  the  year  776  B.C.  the  names 
and  fatherland  of  the  victors  were  carefully  preserved  in  official 
lists,  and  at  last  the  dates  of  the  Olympic  festivals  became  the 
favorite  basis  for  the  calculation  of  historical  dates.  The  games 
were  held  in  every  fifth  year,  so  that  the  "  Olympiad  "  comprised  a 
space  of  forty-eight  months.  The  unit  of  time  was  inconveniently 
large,  but  as  there  was  no  other  common  Hellenic  era  by  which  all 
Greeks  could  calculate  dates,  the  "  Olympiad  "  was  almost  univer- 
sally accepted,  and  the  year  776  B.C.  forms  the  first  date  in  historical 
chronology.  The  victor  only  received  from  the  judges  a  wreath 
cut  from  the  sacred  olive-grove  of  Zeus  on  the  Altis,  but  his  native 
state  always  hastened  to  load  him  with  prizes,  honors,  and  immuni- 
ties ;  the  man  who  had  won  the  foot-race  or  the  chariot-race  at  the 
great  contest  was  a  considerably  more  important  person  at  home 
than  most  of  the  magistrates. 

It  is  most  characteristic  of  the  Hellenic  nation  to  find  that  this 
festival  was  held  so  important  that  a  sacred  armistice  between  states 
that  were  at  war  was  established  during  the  month  of  the  games. 
This  suspension  of  arms  (or  "  truce  of  God,"  as  the  Middle  Ages 
would  have  called  it)  permitted  all  Greeks  alike  to  appear  as  com- 


RELIGION  43 

petitors.  The  territory  of  Elis  itself  was  held  peculiarly  sacred 
during  the  holy  month,  and  any  armed  force  which  entered  it  in- 
curred the  guilt  of  gross  sacrilege.  Nothing  offended  Greek  feeling 
more  than  the  two  or  three  armed  attempts  to  interfere  with  the 
games  which  are  to  be  found  in  historical  times. 

The  oracles  of  Greece  formed  a  less  peculiar  and  unique  pro- 
duction of  the  bent  of  the  national  character  than  did  the  games. 
Other  peoples  have  very  frequently  sought  to  gain  a  knowledge  of 
the  future  by  sacrifice  and  divination,  by  casting  lots,  or  inquiring 
of  priests  and  seers.  Yet  the  Greek  oracles  are  well  worth  notice 
as  illustrating  the  development  of  the  Greek  mind.  "  They  drew 
their  origin,"  as  has  been  very  happily  said,^  "  from  that  belief  in 
the  existence  of  disembodied  spirits  around  us  which  almost  all 
races  share.  Afterwards,  closely  connected  both  with  the  idea  of 
supernatural  possession  and  the  name  of  Apollo,  they  exhibit  a 
singular  fusion  of  nature-worship  with  sorcery.  Then  as  the  non- 
moral  and  naturalistic  conception  of  the  deity  yields  to  the  moral 
conception  of  him  as  an  idealized  man,  the  oracles  reflect  the  change, 
and  the  Delphian  god  becomes  in  a  certain  sense  the  conscience  of 
Greece."  It  would  seem  that  at  first  the  Hellene  sought  to  gain 
access  to  the  gods  by  seeking  them  in  some  wild  and  awesome  spot 
far  in  the  depths  of  the  forests  or  the  bosom  of  the  mountains. 
Zeus  at  Dodona  gave  men  answers  by  the  sound  of  the  wind  that 
moaned  through  his  oak-groves.  At  Lebadeia  the  inquirer  de- 
scended into  a  long  subterranean  cave;  by  the  river  of  Acheron 
he  went  down  into  a  gloomy  gorge  to  consult  the  oracle  of  de- 
parted souls;  at  Delos  he  stood  by  a  volcanic  cleft  in  the  moun- 
tain-side. 

Delphi,  as  much  without  a  peer  among  the  oracles  of  Greece  as 
was  Olympia  among  its  homes  of  athletic  contest,  may  serve  as  the 
perfected  type  of  them  all.  It  lies  among  barren  and  lonely  hills 
in  the  folds  of  Parnassus,  shut  in  by  an  amphitheater  of  rocks. 
The  power  of  the  god  centered  in  a  cave  in  the  cliff,  where  a  mephi- 
tic  vapor  arose  from  a  chasm  and  intoxicated  those  who  breathed  it. 
Seated  on  her  tripod  above  the  cleft,  the  priestess  of  Apollo  drank 
in  inspiration,  and  chanted  wild  and  whirling  words  which  were 
instinct  with  prophecy.  Her  sayings  were  taken  down,  and 
delivered,  generally  in  hexameter  verses,  to  the  suppliants  for  whom 
she  was  making  inquiry.     At  first  men  came  to  Delphi  for  predic- 

1  See  Myers's  "  Classical  Studies,"  p.  8. 


44  GREECE 

tions  alone,  but  ere  long  they  came  also  for  advice  on  every  occupa- 
tion of  human  life.  The  temple  which  was  built  in  front  of  the 
cave  became  rich  with  the  offerings  of  votaries  from  every 
Grecian  tribe,  and  even  from  the  barbarian  kings  of  foreign  lands. 
Statesmen  came  to  consult  Apollo  about  their  political  schemes; 
both  Lycurgus  and  Solon  are  said  to  have  received  his  approval. 
Ambassadors  took  advice  as  to  weighty  matters  of  peace  and  war. 
Above  all,  the  colonist  came  to  seek  from  the  oracle  a  direction  as 
to  the  land  to  which  his  migration  would  most  profitably  be  directed. 
Some  of  the  noblest  cities  of  the  Greek  world,  Cyrene  and  By- 
zantium for  example,  had  their  sites  fixed  by  the  guidance  of  Apollo, 
"  the  god  of  ways."  That  the  prophecies  were  often  useful  and 
intelligent,  we  may  well  believe.  The  priests  had  an  unrivaled 
knowledge  of  men  and  lands,  gained  by  constant  converse  with 
travelers  from  every  known  shore.  But  when  the  problem  was 
hard,  Apollo  often  took  refuge  in  sounding  platitudes  or  obscure 
riddles.  Everyone  has  heard  of  the  dishonest  evasions  in  which 
the  god  indulged  in  the  cases  of  Croesus  and  Pyrrhus. 

But  the  moral  utterances  of  the  oracle  were,  perhaps,  its  most 
noteworthy  sayings.  They  mark  the  growth  in  Greece  of  the 
instinctive  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  and  show  how 
Apollo,  the  god  of  light  and  purification,  represented  the  highest 
aspect  of  contemporary  thought.  Typical  of  them  all  is  the  strik- 
ing story  of  Glaucus  the  Spartan.  He  consulted  the  god  whether 
he  might  safely  deny  to  the  heirs  of  a  deceased  friend  the  gold  with 
which  the  dead  man  had  entrusted  him.  Apollo  replied  that  "  if 
he  swore  falsely,  he  would  be  able  to  retain  the  money ;  but  that  an 
awful  vengeance  awaited  the  perjurer  and  all  his  line."  Glaucus 
then  besought  the  god  to  pardon  his  inquiry;  but  the  priestess  cried 
out  that  "  it  was  as  wicked  to  have  tempted  Apollo  with  such  a  ques- 
tion as  it  would  have  been  to  have  retained  the  gold."  The  wish 
was  punished  like  a  deed,  and  Glaucus  with  all  his  race  came  to  an 
evil  end.  Other  answers  of  the  oracle  might  be  quoted  inculcating 
mercifulness  to  the  conquered,  respect  for  the  life  of  slaves,  the 
strict  fulfillment  of  treaties,  obedience  to  parents,  the  granting  of 
compensation  to  the  weak  when  they  have  been  injured,  and  other 
moral  obligations,  whose  recognition  marks  the  progress  of  a 
nation's  moral  being.  It  is  sad,  however,  to  think  that  the  oracle 
which  could  at  one  moment  make  itself  the  mouthpiece  of  the 
highest  and  best  thoughts  of  the  age,  might  at  the  next  sink  to  the 


RELIGION  45 

use  of  paltry  evasions  and  senseless  jingles,  and  send  the  inquirer 
away  with  a  riddle  which  was  worse  than  no  answer  at  all. 

But  the  inconsistencies  of  the  oracle  are  not  uncharacteristic 
of  the  whole  of  the  Hellenic  religious  system.  If  that  religion  often 
succeeded  in  inspiring  noble  and  beautiful  ideas,  it  might  as  often 
be  found  lapsing  into  mere  childishrress  or  crude  immorality. 


Chapter  V 

THE    GREAT    MIGRATIONS 

IF  there  is  any  point  in  the  annals  of  Greece  at  which  we  can 
draw  the  hne  between  the  days  of  myth  and  legend  and  the 
beginnings  of  authentic  history,  it  is  at  the  moment  of  the  great 
migrations.  Just  as  the  irruption  of  the  Teutonic  tribes  into  the 
Roman  empire  in  the  fifth  century  after  Christ  marks  the  com- 
mencement of  an  entirely  new  era  in  modern  Europe,  so  does  the 
invasion  of  Southern  and  Central  Greece  by  the  Dorians,  and  the 
other  tribes  whom  they  set  in  motion,  form  the  first  landmark  in  a 
new  period  of  Hellenic  history. 

Before  these  migrations  we  are  still  in  an  atmosphere  which  we 
cannot  recognize  as  that  of  the  historical  Greece  that  we  know. 
The  states  have  different  boundaries,  some  of  the  most  famous 
cities  have  not  yet  been  founded,  tribes  who  are  destined  to  vanish 
occupy  prominent  places  in  the  land,  royal  houses  of  a  foreign 
stock  are  established  everywhere,  the  distinction  between  Hellene 
and  Barbarian  is  yet  unknown.  We  cannot  realize  a  Greece  where 
Athens  is  not  yet  counted  as  a  great  city,  while  Mycenae  is  a  seat  of 
empire ;  where  the  Achaian  element  is  everywhere  predominant,  and 
the  Dorian  element  is  as  yet  unknown. 

When,  however,  the  migrations  are  ended,  we  at  once  find  our- 
selves in  a  land  which  we  recognize  as  the  Greece  of  history.  The 
tribes  have  settled  into  the  districts  which  are  to  be  their  permanent 
abodes,  and  have  assumed  their  distinctive  characters.  The  old 
royal  houses  of  mythical  descent  have  passed  away;  both  socially 
and  politically  the  Hellenes  are  fast  developing  into  a  people  whom 
we  recognize  as  the  ancestors  of  the  men  of  the  great  fifth  and 
fourth  centuries. 

The  original  impetus  which  set  the  Greek  tribes  in  motion  came 
from  the  north,  and  the  whole  movement  rolled  southward  and 
eastward.  It  started  with  the  invasion  of  the  valley  of  the  Peneus 
by  the  Thessalians,  a  warlike  but  hitherto  obscure  tribe,  who  had 
dwelt  about  Dodona  in  the  uplands  of  Epirus.     They  crossed  the 

46 


GREAT     MIGRATIONS  47 

passes  of  Pindus,  and  flooded  down  into  the  great  plain  to  which 
they  were  to  give  their  name.  The  tribes  which  had  previously 
held  it  were  either  crushed  and  enslaved  or  pushed  forward  into 
Central  Greece  by  the  wave  of  invasion.  Two  of  the  displaced 
races  found  new  homes  for  themselves  by  conquest.  The  Arnaeans, 
who  had  dwelt  in  the  southern  lowlands  along  the  courses  of  Api- 
danus  and  Enipeus,  came  through  Thermopylae,  pushed  the  Locri- 
ans  aside  to  right  and  left,  and  descended  into  the  valley  of  the 
Cephissus,  where  they  subdued  the  Minyae  of  Orchomenus,  and 
then,  passing  south,  utterly  expelled  the  Cadmeians  of  Thebes. 
The  plain  country  which  they  had  conquered  received  a  single  name. 
Boeotia  became  the  common  title  of  the  basins  of  the  Cephissus  and 
the  Asopus,  which  had  previously  been  in  the  hands  of  distinct 
races. 

Two  generations  later  the  Boeotians  endeavored  to  cross 
Cithaeron,  and  add  Attica  to  their  conquests ;  but  their  king 
Xanthus  fell  in  single  combat  with  Melanthus,  who  fought  in  behalf 
of  Athens,  and  his  host  gave  up  the  enterprise.  In  their  new  coun- 
try the  Boeotians  retained  their  national  unity  under  the  form  of 
a  league,  in  which  no  one  city  had  authority  over  another,  though  in 
process  of  time  Thebes  grew  so  much  greater  than  her  neighbors 
that  she  exercised  a  marked  preponderance  over  the  other  thir- 
teen members  of  the  confederation.  Orchomenus,  whose  Minyan 
inhabitants  had  been  subdued  but  not  exterminated  by  the  invaders, 
remained  dependent  on  the  league  without  being  at  first  amalga- 
mated with  it. 

A  second  tribe  who  were  expelled  by  the  irruption  of  the 
Thessalians  were  the  Dorians,  a  race  whose  name  is  hardly  heard 
in  Homer,  and  whose  early  history  had  been  obscure  and  insignifi- 
cant. They  had  till  now  dwelt  along  the  eastern  slope  of  Pindus. 
Swept  on  by  the  invaders,  they  crossed  Mount  Othrys,  and  dwelt 
for  a  time  in  the  valley  of  the  Spercheius  and  on  the  shoulders  of 
Oeta.  But  the  land  was  too  narrow  for  them,  and,  after  a  genera- 
tion had  passed,  the  bulk  of  the  nation  moved  southward  to  seek 
a  wider  home,  while  a  small  fraction  only  remained  in  the  valleys  of 
Oeta.  Legends  tell  us  that  their  first  advance  was  made  by  the 
Isthmus  of  Corinth,  and  was  repulsed  by  the  allied  states  of  Pelo- 
ponnesus, Hyllus  the  Dorian  leader  falling  in  single  combat  by  the 
hand  of  Echemus,  King  of  Tegea.  But  the  grandsons  of  Hyllus 
resumed  his  enterprise,  and  met  with  greater  success. 


48  GREECE 

Their  invasion  was  made,  as  we  are  told,  in  conjunction  with 
their  neighbors  the  Aetolians,  and  took  the  Aetohan  port  of  Nau- 
pactus  as  its  base.  Pushing  across  the  narrow  strait  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Corinthian  Gulf,  the  allied  hordes  landed  in  Peloponnesus, 
and  forced  their  way  down  the  level  country  on  its  western  coast, 
then  the  land  of  the  Epeians,  but  afterwards  to  be  known  as  Elis 
and  Pisatis.  This  the  Aetolians  took  as  their  share,  while  the 
Dorians  pressed  farther  south  and  east,  and  conquered  at  one  blow 
Messenia,  Laconia,  and  Argolis,  destroying  the  Cauconian  king- 
dom of  Pylos  and  the  Achaian  states  of  Sparta  and  Argos. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  legends  of  the  Dorians  pressed 
into  a  single  generation  the  conquests  of  a  long  series  of  years. 
When  they  told  how  Temenus,  Aristodemus,  and  Cresphontes,  the 
three  grandsons  of  Hyllus,  drew  lots  for  the  Peloponnesian  lands, 
and  gained  respectively  Argos,  Lacedaemon,  and  Messenia  as  their 
shares,  they  were  simply  disguising  the  fact  that  three  Dorian  war- 
bands  at  one  time  or  another  got  possession  of  those  districts.  It 
is  highly  probable  that  Messenia  was  the  first  seized  of  the  three 
regions,  and  Argos  the  latest,  for  tradition  spoke  of  the  resistance 
of  that  great  city  as  having  lasted  so  long  that  King  Temenus  died 
before  his  allotted  portion  was  subdued,  but  of  the  details  or  dates 
of  the  Dorian  conquests  we  know  absolutely  nothing. 

Of  the  tribes  whom  the  Dorians  supplanted,  some  remained  in 
the  land  as  subjects  to  their  newly  found  masters,  while  others  took 
ship  and  fled  over  sea.  The  stoutest-hearted  of  the  Achaians  of 
Argolis,  under  Tisamenus,  a  grandson  of  Agamemnon,  retired 
northward  when  the  contest  became  hopeless,  and  threw  themselves 
on  the  coast  cities  of  the  Corinthian  Gulf,  where  up  to  this  time 
the  Ionic  tribe  of  the  Aegialeans  had  dwelt.  The  lonians  were 
worsted,  and  fled  for  refuge  to  their  kindred  in  Attica,  while  the 
conquerors  created  a  new  Achaia  between  the  Arcadian  Mountains 
and  the  sea,  and  dwelt  in  the  twelve  cities  which  their  predecessors 
had  built. 

The  rugged  mountains  of  Arcadia  were  the  only  part  of  Pelo- 
ponnesus which  were  to  escape  a  change  of  masters  resulting  from 
the  Dorian  invasion.  A  generation  after  the  fall  of  Argos  new 
warbands  thirsting  for  land  pushed  on  to  the  north  and  east,  led  by 
descendants  of  Temenus.  The  Ionic  towns  of  Sicyon  and  Phlius, 
Epidaurus  and  Troezen,  all  fell  before  them.  Even  the  inaccessible 
Acropolis  which  protected  the  Aeolian  settlement  of  Corinth  could 


GREAT     MIGRATIONS  49 

not  preserve  it  from  the  hands  of  the  enterprising  Aletes.  Nor  was 
it  long  before  the  conquerors  pressed  on  from  Corinth  beyond  the 
isthmus,  and  attacked  Attica.  Foiled  in  their  endeavor  to  subdue 
the  land,  they  at  least  succeeded  in  tearing  from  it  its  western  dis- 
tricts, where  the  town  of  Megara  was  made  the  capital  of  a  new 
Dorian  state,  and  served  for  many  generations  to  curb  the  power 
of  Athens.  From  Epidaurus  a  short  voyage  of  fifteen  miles  took 
the  Dorians  to  Aegina,  where  they  formed  a  settlement  which,  first 
as  a  vassal  to  Epidaurus,  and  then  as  an  independent  community, 
enjoyed  a  high  degree  of  commercial  prosperity. 

It  is  not  the  least  curious  feature  of  the  Dorian  invasion  that 
the  leaders  of  the  victorious  tribe,  who,  like  most  other  royal 
houses,  claimed  to  descend  from  the  gods  and  boasted  that  Heracles 
was  their  ancestor,  should  have  asserted  that  they  were  not  Dorians 
by  race,  but  Achaians.  Whether  the  rude  northern  invaders  were 
in  truth  guided  by  princes  of  a  different  blood  and  higher  civiliza- 
tion than  themselves,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  It  has  been  suggested 
that  the  names  of  the  three  Dorian  tribes  found  in  every  state,  the 
Hylleis,  Pamphyli,  and  Dymanes,  point  to  the  mixed  origin  of  the 
invading  horde.  If  the  "  Pamphyli,"  as  their  name  would  seem 
to  indicate,  were  a  "  mixed  multitude,"  -who  followed  the  Dorian 
banner,  and  the  "  Hylleis  " — who  derived  their  name  from  Hyllus, 
the  first  Heracleid  king — were  the  personal  retainers  of  Achaian 
chiefs  who  had  placed  themselves  at  the  head  of  the  invasion,  then 
the  pure  Dorian  element  among  the  invaders  must  have  been  much 
more  slight  than  is  generally  imagined. 

In  all  probability  the  Dorian  invasion  was  to  a  considerable 
extent  a  check  in  the  history  of  the  development  of  Greek  civiliza- 
tion, a  supplanting  of  a  richer  and  more  cultured  by  a  poorer  and 
wilder  race.  The  ruins  of  the  prehistoric  cities,  which  were 
replaced  by  new  Dorian  foundations,  point  to  a  state  of  wealth  to 
which  the  country  did  not  again  attain  for  many  generations.  The 
ornaments  and  tools  which  are  found  among  their  debris  are  so 
different  from  those  used  in  historic  Greece,  that  we  should  hardly 
have  suspected  that  their  inhabitants  were  of  the  Hellenic  stock, 
if  the  voice  of  tradition  had  not  indicated  Mycenae,  Tiryns,  and 
Orchomenus  as  among  the  earliest  centers  of  Hellenic  wealth  and 
power.  When  they  were  destroyed,  much  civilization  perished  with 
them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  invasion  brought  about  an  increase 
in  vigor  and  moral  earnestness.     The  Dorians  throughout  their 


50  GREECE 

history  were  the  sturdiest  and  most  manly  of  the  Greeks.  The  god 
to  whose  worship  they  were  especially  devoted  was  Apollo,  the 
purest,  the  noblest,  the  most  Hellenic  member  of  the  Olympian 
family.  By  their  peculiar  reverence  for  this  noble  conception  of 
divinity,  the  Dorians  marked  themselves  out  as  the  most  moral  of 
the  Greeks. 


Chapter  VI 

COLONIES    IN    ASIA 

THE  stir  and  movement  which  were  caused  by  the  intrusion 
of  Dorians  and  Aetolians,  ThessaHans  and  Boeotians,  into 
their  new  homes  were  destined  to  make  their  effects  felt 
far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Hellenic  peninsula.  There  was  now 
a  vast  body  of  displaced  population  seeking  a  new  home;  every 
mountain  and  promontory  was  crowded  with  broken  remnants  of 
the  worsted  tribes,  who  had  escaped  being  reduced  to  serfdom,  and 
had  taken  refuge  in  the  remoter  corners  of  the  land.  In  many  cases 
the  conquerors  had  allowed  the  conquered  to  depart  under  a  treaty; 
in  others  a  tribe  had  fled  before  the  storm  and  taken  refuge  with 
those  of  its  kinsmen  who  were  still  unsubdued.  Everywhere  there 
were  to  be  found  masses  of  population  which  had  been  cut  loose 
from  their  moorings,  and  were  ready  to  drift  in  any  direction  to 
which  the  current  of  the  times  might  bear  them. 

Gradually  this  heterogeneous  crowd  began  to  show  a  tendency 
to  move  eastward  by  sea.  The  North  was  held  by  wild  and  hardy 
races  with  whom  they  did  not  dare  to  measure  themselves ;  the 
West  was  a  mysterious  waste  of  waters  known  only  to  the  Phoeni- 
cian. But  to  the  east  lay  Asia  Minor — a  land  with  which  the  emi- 
grants had  a  considerable  acquaintance,  whose  tribes  they  had  met 
both  in  war  and  in  commerce,  and  whose  fertility,  as  they  knew, 
exceeded  by  far  that  of  their  own  mountainous  land. 

That  the  inhabitants  of  the  Hellenic  peninsula  had  for  long 
ages  been  in  constant  intercourse  with  the  people  of  the  opposite 
shore  we  can  be  certain.  When  the  Achaians  ravaged  the  Egyptian 
Delta  in  the  thirteenth  century,  their  vessels  were  accompanied  by 
those  of  Lycians  and  other  tribes  from  the  southwest  of  Asia 
Minor.  When  the  Danai  afflicted  the  subjects  of  Rameses  III., 
they  brought  with  them  Teucrians  and  Dardanians  from  the  Troad. 
The  poems  of  Homer  preserve  some  dim  memory  of  a  hostile 
contact  with  these  same  Teucrians  in  days  long  before  the  Hellenes 
dreamed  of  settling  in  Asia.  W^hen  once  they  had  mastered  the 
art  of  navigation,  and  discovered  the  natural  bridge  which  the 

61 


52  GREECE 

Cyclades  form  between  the  two  continents,  it  would  have  been 
strange  indeed  if  the  Greeks  had  refrained  from  constant  visits  to 
the  opposite  coast. 

Asia  Minor  consists  of  a  great  central  plateau  with  a  fertile 
coast-plain  lying  below  it,  and  forming,  as  has  been  happily  said,  "  a 
fringe  of  a  different  material  woven  on  to  the  garment."  This  sea- 
board on  the  Aegean  is,  like  Greece,  a  land  of  gulfs  and  harbors 
and  promontories,  but  it  possesses  a  succession  of  rich  plains  and 
valleys  to  which  the  more  rugged  Western  land  can  afford  no 
parallel.  At  the  moment  of  the  coming  of  the  Greeks,  most  of  the 
plateau  was  part  of  the  widespreading  possessions  of  the  Hittites, 
while  the  shore  was  held  by  a  number  of  tribes  of  very  varying 
blood.  The  Teucrians  and  Phrygians  lay  to  the  north  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Hellespont ;  the  Lycians  were  in  the  extreme  south ;  the 
Carians  and  the  minor  tribe  of  the  Leleges  dwelt  between  the  others, 
in  the  valleys  of  the  Maeander,  Hermus,  and  Cayster,  and  on  the 
islands  which  lie  in  front  of  them.  These  tribes  possessed  a  civili- 
zation of  their  own,  different  in  character  but  not  very  different  in 
degree  from  that  of  the  Greeks.  Polygamy  prevailed  among  some 
of  the  races,  polyandry  in  others, — both  practices  abhorrent  to 
Greek  custom.  ]\Iost  of  the  peoples  worshiped  as  their  supreme 
deity  a  great  nature-goddess,  mother  and  nourisher  of  all  living 
things,  whom  the  Greeks  called  Artemis  (as  at  Ephesus),  or  Hera 
(as  at  Samos),  or  Aphrodite  (as  at  Cnidus),  though,  in  truth,  she 
had  nothing  to  do  with  any  of  those  Hellenic  divinities.  The  Teu- 
crians or  Carians  did  not  seem  to  the  Hellenes  utterly  alien  and 
savage,  as  did  a  Thracian  or  a  Scythian,  or  possessed  of  such  an 
utterly  different  civilization  as  to  be  incomprehensible,  as  did  an 
Egyptian.  They  were  perhaps  not  very  distant  kinsmen,  and  were 
certainly  near  enough  to  mix  readily  with  the  Greek,  and  adopt 
much  of  his  civilization. 

It  was,  accordingly,  on  those  of  their  neighbors  with  whose 
land  they  were  best  acquainted,  and  whose  strength  and  weakness 
they  were  best  able  to  gauge,  that  the  expelled  tribes  of  Thessaly 
and  Boeotia,  Ionia,  and  Achaia,  determined  to  throw  themselves. 
Three  main  streams  of  invasion  can  be  traced,  each  drawing  the 
greater  part  of  its  resources  from  a  dift'erent  group  of  peoples. 

The  first  is  that  pursued  by  the  emigrants,  who  called  them- 
selves by  the  general  name  of  Aeolians.  Their  main  body  was 
composed  of  races  escaping  from  the  northern  parts  of  Greece,  of 


COLONIES    IN    ASIA  63 

Magnetes  and  Minyae  who  fled  from  the  Thessahans,  and  of  Orcho- 
menians,  Cadmeians,  and  Locrians,  who  had  been  displaced  by  the 
Boeotians.  But  mixed  with  these  were  Achaians,  who  had  been 
driven  out  of  Peloponnesus  by  the  Dorian  invasion,  and  were  led  by 
chiefs  who  claimed  to  be  the  descendants  of  Agamemnon.  Not 
impossibly  the  name  Aeolian,  "  the  variegated,"  was  first  invented 
to  express  the  mixed  character  of  this  multitude,  and  only  after- 
wards applied  as  a  common  name  to  the  original  peoples  who  had 
sent  forth  the  emigrants — races  who  had  previously  had  little  to 
do  with  each  other.  The  port  which  tradition  pointed  out  as  the 
starting-point  of  the  Aeolian  adventurers  was  Aulis,  hard  by  the 
Euripus  in  the  Euboean  Strait.  Hence  it  came  to  pass  that  Boeotia 
was  vaguely  spoken  of  as  the  mother-country  of  the  Aeolis  in  Asia 
Minor,  where  the  emigrants  settled. 

The  point  at  which  the  first  pioneers  of  this  exodus  made  their 
descent  was  the  great  and  fertile  island  of  Lesbos.  They  drove 
out  from  it  an  early  race  vaguely  called  Pelasgic,  i.e.  aboriginal, 
and  founded  on  its  shores  five  flourishing  towns,  of  which  the  chief 
was  Mitylene.  These  places  were  themselves  ere  long  the  parents 
of  new  settlements  on  the  mainland.  Another  band,  largely  com- 
posed of  Locrians,  but  led  by  Cleues  and  Malaus,  who  are  called 
princes  of  the  house  of  Agamemnon,  landed  in  Mysia,  at  the  estuary 
of  the  Caicus,  and  seized  a  native  town,  whose  name  they  turned  to 
Cyme.  This  place  became  the  largest  continental  settlement  of 
the  Aeolians,  and  was  reckoned  second  only  to  ]Mitylene  among 
their  cities.  Gradually,  as  new  settlers  came  flocking  in,  town  after 
town  was  founded,  till  the  coast  opposite  Lesbos  was  fringed  by  a 
continuous  belt  of  Aeolian  states.  Further  to  the  north,  in  the 
Troad,  the  adventurers  who  landed  at  Assos  and  Antandrus  had 
harder  work  to  win  themselves  a  territory',  and  were  forced  to 
maintain  a  long  and  doubtful  war  with  the  warlike  Teucrians  or 
Dardanians,  before  they  could  settle  down  in  peace.  At  last  the 
natives  were  driven  up  into  the  recesses  of  Ida,  and  the  coast-land 
remained  to  the  Greeks.  Altogether,  between  the  mouth  of  the 
Hellespont  and  the  Bay  of  Smyrna,  the  Aeolians  founded  more  than 
thirty  cities.  None  of  them,  however,  save  Mitylene  and  Cyme, 
became  places  of  any  great  importance.  They  lay  close  together 
all  along  the  shore,  with  the  exception  of  the  single  town  of  Mag- 
nesia, which  the  exiled  Magnetes  of  Thessaly  built  at  a  distance  of 
thirty  miles  from  the  sea  some  way  up  the  valley  of  the  Hermus. 


54.  GREECE 

Another  stream  of  emigration,  starting  from  a  different  base, 
affected  the  Carian  and  Lelegian  lands  to  the  south  of  AeoHs.  In 
this  district  the  invaders  were  mainly  lonians,  the  tribes  who  had 
been  expelled  from  the  north  coast  of  Peloponnesus  by  the  Achaians, 
and  from  Epidaurus,  Troezen,  and  Phlius  by  the  Dorians.  These 
exiles  had  ta'ken  refuge  with  their  kindred  in  Attica,  but  that  barren 
peninsula  could  not  long  support  them.  To  Attica,  too,  had  wan- 
d'ered  broken  remnants  of  other  tribes — Cadmeians,  Euboeans  and 
Phocians  from  the  north,  and  Pylians  from  Peloponnesus.  Some 
of  these  strangers  stayed  in  the  peninsula,  and  the  Pylian  house  of 
Melanthus  even  became  kings  at  Athens  when  the  descendants  of 
Theseus  died  out.  But  the  large  majority  joined  in  the  migration, 
and  were  merged  among  their  Ionian  comrades.  Their  leaders  were 
sometimes  Athenian  princes,  sometimes  exiled  chiefs  from  Pelopon- 
nesus. The  Ionic  migration  differed  from  the  Aeolian  by  being 
more  military  and  less  national.  The  invaders  did  not,  we  are  told, 
bring  wife  and  child  with  them,  but  were  rather  bands  of  adven- 
turers unencumbered  with  useless  mouths.  Hence  we  find  them, 
after  the  first  moment  of  struggle,  taking  wives  from  the  conquered, 
and  mixing  freely  with  the  Carians  and  Leleges  whom  they  found 
on  the  spot.  "  Those  who  say  that  they  started  from  the  Pryta- 
neium  of  Athens,  and  claim  to  have  the  purest  blood  of  all  lonians," 
says  Herodotus,  "  ignore  the  fact  that  their  ancestors  took  to  wives 
the  Carian  women  whose  fathers  they  had  slain."  There  was,  there- 
fore, from  the  first  a  large  Asiatic  and  non-Hellenic  element  in  the 
blood  of  the  Ionian  colonists  of  Asia — an  element  which  had  a  large 
share  in  making  them  the  least  tenacious  and  most  luxurious  of  the 
Greeks.  The  Aeolian  invaders  of  Mysia  and  the  Troad  had  on 
their  way  to  cross  the  Aegean  at  the  point  where  it  is  least  thickly 
studded  with  islands.  The  lonians  who  started  from  Attica,  on  the 
other  hand,  found  their  path  lying  through  the  midst  of  the  Cycladcs. 
Many  of  the  emigrants  halted  by  the  way  and  settled  down  on  these 
islands,  where  they  must  have  found  a  scattered  Ionian  population 
already  existing,  mixed,  it  would  appear,  with  Carians,  Cretans, 
and  Leleges.  The  new-comers  so  far  modified  and  influenced  the 
population  that  for  the  future  nearly  all  the  islands  named  chiefs 
of  the  migration  as  their  oekists,  and  looked  to  Attica  as  their 
mother-country. 

Wave  after  wave  of  Ionic  adventurers  swept  on  by  the  Cyclades 
to  the  spacious  islands  of  Chios  and  Samos,  the  broad  peninsula  of 


COLONIES    IN    ASIA  55 

Mimas,  and  the  fertile  valleys  of  the  Cayster  and  the  Maeander.  To 
Phocaea  in  the  north,  hard  by  the  Aeolian  Cyme,  the  Athenian 
Philogenes  led  a  mixed  band  in  which  Phocians  predominated. 
Further  south,  Chios  was  occupied  by  settlers  who  were  mainly  of 
Euboean  race;  Amphiclus  of  Histiaea,  who  was  their  commander, 
after  defeating  the  Carians  and  Leleges  of  the  island,  allowed  them 
to  quit  it  under  an  oath  never  to  return.  In  Samos,  Procles,  who 
led  the  exiled  lonians  of  Epidaurus,  was  yet  more  merciful  to  the 
natives,  and  incorporated  them  with  his  followers  as  a  single  com- 
munity. Neleus,  son  of  the  Athenian  King  Codrus,  who  seized  the 
territory  at  the  mouth  of  the  Maeander,  was  more  ruthless,  and  slew 
off  all  the  Carians  who  dwelt  about  his  city  of  Miletus,  whence  it 
was  said  that  the  Milesians  were  less  tainted  with  aboriginal  blood 
than  the  other  lonians.  At  Ephesus,  however,  which  held  in  the 
valley  of  the  Cayster  the  same  predominant  position  that  Miletus 
enjoyed  in  that  of  the  ^Maeander,  a  Greek  town  founded  by  the 
Codrid  Androclus  rose  side  by  side  with  an  ancient  Carian  settle- 
ment, that  centered  round  the  temple  of  the  great  nature-goddess 
whom  the  Ionian  new-comers  chose  to  call  Artemis.  After  a  time, 
the  Hellenes  and  the  aborigines  blended  into  one  community. 

Between  Phocaea  on  the  north  and  Miletus  on  the  south  there 
grew  up,  in  the  course  of  a  few  generations,  a  continuous  chain  of 
ten  Ionian  cities ;  the  Island  states  of  Chios  and  Samos  made  their 
total  number  twelve.  In  spite  of  their  difference  in  origin  and 
population,  they  were  sufficiently  akin  to  unite  for  the  common 
worship  of  the  Ionian  Poseidon  at  a  sanctuary  on  Mount  Mycale, 
which  they  called  the  Panionium.  After  a  time,  religious  union 
led  to  a  certain  political  connection,  and  a  loose  confederacy  was 
formed,  whose  delegates  met  at  the  Panionium  to  discuss  their 
common  affairs.  But  far  into  the  fifth  century  the  ethnic  difference 
between  the  several  towns  was  shown  by  the  fact  that  four  distinct 
dialects  were  still  spoken  in  Ionia. ^ 

It  was  not  only  the  conquered  races  of  Greece  that  were  to  take 
part  in  the  great  movement  toward  Asia.  After  a  time,  the  con- 
querors too  found  themselves  under  the  same  impulse,  and  began 
to  push  across  the  Aegean.  The  Dorians  of  Peloponnesus,  over- 
flowing from  their  new  home,  sent  out  several  swarms  of  colonists. 

^  One  was  peculiar  to  Samos ;  one  was  spoken  at  Chios  and  Erythrae ;  a 
third  at  Ephesus,  Colophon,  Lebedus,  Teos,  Clazomenae  and  Phocaea;  a  fourth  at 
Miletus,  Myus,  and  Priene. 


56  GREECE 

Their  largest  band  made  for  Crete,  where,  if  legends  can  be  trusted, 
Minos  had  long  ago  built  up  a  powerful  state.  But  the  island  was 
peopled  by  various  races  without  cohesion,  a  Dorian  element  was 
already  to  be  found  in  a  corner  of  the  island,  and  no  common  resist- 
ance was  offered.  The  new  emigrants  reduced  to  villeinage  the 
other  races  of  the  island,  Achaians,  Carians,  and  possibly  Phoeni- 
cians, and  organized  themselves  under  a  strict  discipline  as  a 
military  aristocracy  among  a  people  of  serfs. 

Melos  and  Thera  among  the  Sporades  were  colonized  by 
Dorians  from  Laconia,  mixed  with  their  subjects  from  the  same 
land,  whom  they  brought  with  them  and  admitted  to  a  share  in  the 
colony.  Further  to  the  east  the  spacious  Rhodes — equaled  in  size 
by  Lesbos  only  among  the  Asiatic  islands — was  occupied  by  three 
groups  of  settlers  from  Argos,  who  built  the  towns  of  Lindus, 
lalysus,  and  Cameirus.  In  the  southwestern  corner  of  Caria, 
where  two  long  peninsulas  jut  out  into  the  sea,  the  Laconians 
founded  Cnidus,  and  the  Troezenians  Halicarnassus,  Finally  the 
large  island  of  Cos,  which  lies  off  the  peninsula  of  Halicarnassus, 
was  also  settled  by  emigrants  from  Troezen.  The  people  of  Cos, 
Cnidus,  and  Halicarnassus,  together  with  those  of  the  three  towns 
of  Rhodes,  formed  a  Doric  "  Hexapolis,"  who  joined  in  a  common 
worship  of  Apollo  at  Cape  Triopium.  The  power  and  organization 
of  their  league  was  a  faint  reflection  of  that  of  the  far  more  im- 
portant Ionian  confederacy  which  united  to  reverence  Poseidon  at 
the  Panionium.  The  Hexapolis,  together  with  a  few  neighboring 
Dorian  settlements  of  smaller  importance,  Myndus,  Nisyrus,  and 
others,  was  often  called  Doris,  just  as  the  larger  groups  of  colonies 
to  the  north  were  respectively  known  as  Ionia  and  Aeolis. 

What  was  the  exact  date  of  the  establishment  of  the  eastern- 
most group  of  Greek  colonies,  those  which  were  founded  in  Cyprus, 
it  is  hard  to  say.  Tradition  ascribed  their  settlement  to  the  heroes 
of  the  Trojan  War;  but  we  may  safely  conclude  that  Cyprus  was 
not  approached  by  the  Greeks  till  the  nearer  lands  in  Asia  Minor 
had  already  been  seized.  That  the  emigration  to  Cyprus,  however, 
was  at  an  early  date  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that  the  Cypriot 
Greeks  are  found  using  a  more  primitive  form  of  writing,  borrowed 
from  the  East,  than  any  other  branch  of  the  Hellenic  race.  Before 
the  simple  and  convenient  "  Cadmeian  letters  "  became  known,  the 
Cypriots  devised  an  archaic  and  complicated  syllabary.  If,  as  we 
concluded    elsewhere,    the   other    Greeks    adopted    the    Phoenician 


COLONIES    IN    ASIA  57 

alphabet  in  the  ninth  century,  Cyprus  must  have  been  settled  before 
that  epoch.  We  are,  at  any  rate,  certain  that  the  Greeks  were 
thoroughly  rooted  down  in  Cyprus  long  before  the  eighth  century 
before  Christ,  as  the  Assyrian  conquerors  of  the  island  in  that  age 
name  several  Greek  kings  among  their  vassals.  The  chief  Greek  colo- 
nies of  the  island  were  Salamis,  Paphos,  and  Curium,  which  main- 
tained a  constant  struggle  for  supremacy  with  the  older  Phoenician 
towns  of  Amathus,  Citium,  Golgos,  and  Tamassus,  The  founders  of 
the  Greek  towns  were  of  very  various  descent.  We  hear  of  Achaians, 
under  Teucer  of  Salamis,  the  brother  of  the  hero  Ajax,  of  Argives, 
Laconians,  and  even  of  Arcadians  from  the  inland  of  Peloponnesus. 
The  mixture  of  races  would  certainly  seem  to  point  to  the  period 
of  the  colonization  of  Cyprus  as  being  the  same  as  that  of  Asia 
Minor,  for  at  a  later  date  some  of  these  races  had  entirely  ceased  to 
go  on  maritime  expeditions. 

The  period,  then,  which  covered  the  migration  of  nations  in 
the  Hellenic  peninsula,  and  the  colonization  of  the  Asiatic  shores,  is 
difficult  to  determine  with  accuracy.  That  the  movements  lasted 
through  a  considerable  number  of  generations  we  may  be  certain. 
But  the  genealogies  which  the  later  Greeks  constructed  and  used  as 
a  basis  of  calculation  for  the  dates  of  this  period  are  quite  worthless, 
and  any  deductions  drawn  from  them  are  useless  for  chronology. 
If  any  limits  must  be  given  for  the  length  of  the  age  of  migration,  it 
may  perhaps  be  said  that  the  period  between  iioo  and  950  b.c.  must 
have  seen  the  greater  part  of  the  wanderings  of  the  Greek  races. 


Chapter  VII 

DORIANS  IN  PELOPONNESUS— THE  LEGISLATION 
OF  LYCURGUS 

FOR  more  than  three  hundred  years  after  the  probable  era  of 
the  Dorian  migration  the  history  of  Peloponnesus  is  obscure, 
and  its  chronology  vague  and  inaccurate.  The  Greeks  them- 
selves did  not  pretend  to  give  exact  dates  till  the  first  Olympiad 
(776  B.C.),  and  even  after  this  great  uncertainty  exists,  and  we 
cannot  be  said  to  be  moving  in  a  really  clear  and  historical 
atmosphere  till  the  commencement  of  the  sixth  century.  For  the 
first  two  centuries  our  only  landmarks  are  the  lists  of  Spartan, 
Argive,  Messenian,  and  Corinthian  kings,  most  of  whom  are  mere 
names  to  us,  while  others  have  connected  with  them  stories  that  are 
utterly  impossible.  Still,  royal  genealogies  are  undoubtedly  the 
first  things  that  a  nation  commits  to  memory,  and,  in  default  of 
written  history,  are  not  without  their  value. 

Of  the  three  greater  Dorian  states  which  were  established  in 
Peloponnesus  by  the  Heracleid  chiefs  who  led  the  invasion,  that 
of  Argos  was  for  a  long  time  the  most  important.  Including  its 
dependent  states,  it  may  be  defined  as  holding  the  whole  eastern 
coast  of  the  peninsula.  The  descendants  of  Temenus  held  as  their 
own  domain  the  coast-plain  of  the  Inachus  and  the  slopes  above  it. 
Here  they  would  seem  to  have  admitted  part  of  the  old  Achaian 
inhabitants  to  a  share  in  the  citizenship,  for  besides  the  three  Dorian 
tribes  of  Hylleis,  Pamphyli,  and  Dymanes,  the  Argives  were  divided 
into  a  fourth  called  Hyrnethians,  who  seem  to  represent  the  Achaian 
element.  Outside  the  immediate  territory  of  the  city  of  Argos  were 
other  communities  both  Dorian  and  non-Dorian,  which  acknowl- 
edged the  supremacy  of  their  greater  neighbor.  Of  these  some  were 
actually  vassal  states  closely  bound  to  Argos  as  to  a  mistress.  Such 
were  the  Achaians  of  the  little  town  of  Orneae  and  the  lonians  of 
Cynuria,  who  inhabited  that  rocky  strip  of  coast,  between  Mount 
Parnon  and  the  sea,  which  runs  down  as  far  as  Cape  Malea  and 
even  includes  the  island  of  Cythera.     Less  closely  connected  were 

58 


DORIANS    IN    PELOPONNESUS  59 

the  new  Dorian  states  of  Epidaurus,  Troezen,  Phlius,  Cleonae,  and 
Sicyon,  whose  conquerors  had  started  from  Argos,  and  were  bound 
to  pay  a  certain  deference  to  their  mother-cit}^  The  once-famous 
Achaian  town  of  Mycenae  prolonged  an  obscure  existence  on  its 
hillside  under  the  same  conditions. 

The  first  nine  kings  of  Argos  are  mere  names  to  us.  All  that 
has  come  down  to  us  concerning  them  is  a  series  of  dim  legends 
about  their  wars  with  their  kinsmen  of  Sparta,  which  sound  like 
a  reflection  back  into  an  early  age  of  the  real  wars  of  the  sixth  and 
seventh  centuries.  The  first  Argive  sovereign  who  is  more  than  a 
name  to  us  is  King  Pheidon,  of  whose  deeds  many  tales  are  related. 
He  succeeded  to  a  kingly  power  which  had  become  weakened,  owing 
to  the  encroachments  of  the  Dorian  oligarchy  on  the  rights  and 
prerogatives  of  the  crown.  But  by  armed  force  he  put  down  this 
oligarchy,  and  freed  himself  from  all  constitutional  restraints.  Then 
he  turned  to  enlarge  the  bounds  of  the  empire  of  Argos ;  not  only 
did  he  reduce  Sicyon  and  his  other  Dorian  neighbors  to  a  closer 
dependence,  but  he  added  to  his  client  states  the  important  towns 
of  Corinth  and  Aegina,  which  had  already  become  the  greatest  marts 
and  seaports  of  Southern  Greece.  He  is  even  credited  with  the 
design  of  reducing  the  whole  Peloponnesus  to  vassalage;  he  re- 
pressed the  Spartans,  and,  marching  into  the  west  of  the  peninsula, 
aided  the  Pisatans,  who  were  in  revolt  against  Elis,  and  supported 
them  in  their  claim  to  celebrate  the  Olympic  games,  of  which  we 
now  find  the  first  authentic  mention.  Pheidon  was,  moreover,  a 
legislator ;  he  fixed  a  new  standard  of  weights  and  measures,  which 
was  almost  universally  accepted  among  the  Dorian  and  Aeolian 
states  of  Greece,  and  had  coined  for  him  by  his  Aeginetan  vassals 
the  first  silver  money  which  was  ever  known  west  of  the  Aegean. 
He  consecrated,  we  are  told,  in  the  temple  of  Hera  at  Argos,  samples 
of  the  rude  currency  of  long  silver  nails  which  his  round  obols  and 
drachmae  superseded.  Pheidon  died  in  battle,  having  first,  how- 
ever, seen  his  scheme  of  empire  frustrated.  Under  his  son  the  royal 
power  was  at  once  brought  back  to  its  old  insignificance,  though 
Argive  sovereigns  continued  to  rule  in  name  down  to  the  sixth, 
perhaps  even  to  the  fifth,  century.  The  sole  permanent  result  of 
the  great  king's  reign  was  to  break  down  the  Dorian  oligarchy  at 
Argos,  so  that  democracy  became  possible  in  that  state  before  it  was 
established  in  other  Dorian  communities. 

When  so  much  is  known  of  Pheidon,  it  is  strange  to  realize  that 


60  GREECE 

his  date  is  uncertain.  While  the  received  text  of  Pausanias  ^  tells  us 
that  the  Olympic  games  which  he  assisted  the  Pisatans  to  celebrate 
were  the  eighth  since  the  commencement  of  those  contests  {i.e.  those 
of  748  B.C.),  there  are  other  facts  which  seem  to  bring  Pheidon's 
date  much  lower,  and  it  is  on  the  whole  probable  that  his  real  date 
was  about  675-665  b.c.  When  the  reign  of  a  king  whose  name  was 
the  most  celebrated  of  his  age  cannot  be  fixed  within  a  hundred 
years,  regular  history  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  begun. 

While  Argos  was  holding  the  primacy  in  the  Peloponnese,  her 
sister  states  of  Messenia  and  Laconia  were  going  through  two  oppo- 
site courses  of  development,  which  brought  them  first  into  rivalry 
and  then  into  a  life-and-death  struggle. 

In  Messene,  as  in  Argos,  the  Dorian  conquerors  had  not  alto- 
gether expatriated  or  exterminated  the  earlier  inhabitants  of  the 
land.  Legends  speak  of  Cresphontes,  the  brother  of  Temenus  and 
first  Dorian  king  of  Messenia,  as  having  granted  full  citizenship 
in  his  new  state  to  those  of  the  Pylian  Caucones  and  the  Achaians 
who  did  not  emigrate,  .and  as  having  married,  not  one  of  his  own 
race,  but  the  daughter  of  a  neighboring  prince  of  Arcadia.  His 
anti-national  tendencies  provoked  the  Dorians  to  revolt  and  murder 
their  king;  but  his  son  Aepytus  revenged  his  father,  slew  Poly- 
phontes,  the  leader  of  the  rebels,  and  brought  back  peace  to  the 
land.  Under  the  rule  of  Aepytus  and  his  line,  Dorian,  Caucon,  and 
Achaian  became  thoroughly  fused,  and  Messenia,  though  ruled  by 
a  Heracleid  family,  retained  few  of  the  characteristics  of  a  Dorian 
state. 

In  Laconia  the  condition  of  things  was  entirely  different.  The 
band  of  Dorian  invaders  that  had  settled  round  Sparta  in  the  Eurotas 
valley  was  weak,  and  the  territory  which  it  had  seized  was  narrow, 
bounded  to  the  north  by  the  Arcadian  hills,  and  to  the  south  by  the 
Achaian  fortress  of  Amyclae,  which  stood  only  three  miles  from  the 
capital  of  the  invaders,  and  completely  blocked  their  way  down 
the  valley  of  tlie  Eurotas,  just  as  Fidenae,  in  a  later  day,  blocked 
the  Romans  from  the  valley  of  the  Tiber.  The  Dorians  of  Sparta 
enjoyed  the  constitutional  anomaly  of  having  two  kings  to  reign 
over   them.     Two    royal    houses,    calling   themselves   Agidae    and 

1  It  is  probable  that  the  text  of  Pausanias  had  been  corrupted,  and  that  Phei- 
don's Olympiad  was  the  twenty-eighth,  not  the  eighth — 668,  not  748  b.c.  This 
view  is  corroborated  csi)oc!ally  by  the  recorded  fact  of  his  striking  money;  for 
the  internal  evidence  of  the  Greek  coinage  seems  to  fix  about  680-650,  as  the  date 
of  the  earliest  Acginetan  staters. 


LYCURGUS 

(Circa    800    b.  c.) 

Bust  ill   the   Xdtioncil   Mitsciiin,  Xaples 


DORIANS    IN    PELOPONNESUS  61 

Eurypontidae  respectively,  were  seated  together  on  the  throne,  and 
from  the  first  date  of  their  appearance  distracted  the  state  by  their 
quarrels.  The  Spartans  said  that  Aristodemus,  the  original  leader 
of  their  horde,  had  died,  leaving  twin  sons,  and  that  an  oracle  had 
bidden  them  "  to  take  both  as  kings,  but  to  give  greater  honor  to 
the  elder."  Modern  historians,  discontented  with  the  legend,  have 
tried  to  prove — with  very  doubtful  success — that  the  coexistence  of 
two  royal  houses  represented  the  amalgamation  of  the  conquering 
Dorian  with  the  conquered  Achaian,  or  of  two  separate  Dorian 
bands  settled  one  in  the  valley  of  the  Eurotas,  and  the  other  in  that 
of  the  Oenus.  It  may  be  so,  but  proof  is  impossible;  the  double 
kingship  must  be  taken  as  an  accepted  fact,  whose  explanation  is 
beyond  our  power. 

The  very  weakness  and  isolation  of  the  Dorians  of  Sparta 
account  for  the  fact  that  they  retained  their  national  identity  to  a 
far  greater  degree  than  their  brethren  of  Argos  and  Messene.  They 
were  not  strong  or  numerous  enough  to  conquer  and  incorporate 
their  neighbors,  but  were  compelled  to  fight  hard  with  them  for ' 
every  foot  of  land  they  won.  Just  as  the  Angles  and  Saxons  in 
Britain  retained  their  language  and  their  customs  because  they 
could  not  sweep  over  the  whole  island  and  subdue  its  inhabitants, 
but  had  to  push  forward  slowly,  rooting  out  the  Britons,  so  the 
Spartans  remained  uninfluenced  by  the  older  people  of  Laconia. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Argives  and  Messenians  in  Greece,  just  like 
the  Franks  and  Lombards  in  modern  Europe,  were  strong  enough 
to  win  a  broad  realm  at  a  single  blow,  and  were  ere  long  either 
absorbed  or  at  least  largely  influenced  by  the  preponderating  mass 
of  subjects  whom  they  suddenly  acquired. 

All  authorities  agree  in  describing  the  state  of  early  Sparta  as 
one  of  weakness  and  anarchy.  Her  dominion  did  not  extend;  her 
two  royal  houses  were  incessantly  at  variance;  her  wars  both  with 
her  Dorian  neighbors  of  Argolis  and  with  the  Arcadians  on  her 
northern  frontier  were  usually  disastrous;  her  people  were  discon- 
tented. Such  was  the  condition  of  things  when  her  great  legislator 
Lycurgus  appeared,  to  rescue  her  from  herself,  and  send  her  forth 
armed  for  the  conquest  of  the  whole  Peloponnese. 

Of  the  existence  of  Lycurgus  we  need  have  no  doubt,  though 
modern  writers  have  reduced  him,  in  common  with  most  other  great 
men  of  early  history,  to  the  inevitable  sun-myth.  He  belonged  to 
one  of  the  two  royal  houses,  and  in  all  probability  lived  about  the 


62  GREECE 

year  800  b.c.  We  need  not  accept,  unless  we  choose,  the  legends 
which  tell  how  he  was  the  younger  son  of  King  Eunomus  of  the 
Eurypontid  line;  how  he  exiled  himself  from  Sparta  in  order  to 
avoid  the  suspicion  that  he  would  usurp  the  throne  of  his  infant 
nephew  Charilaiis;  how  he  traveled  in  Greece,  in  Asia,  in  Egypt, 
and  perhaps  yet  further  afield,  and  finally  returned,  full  of  wisdom 
and  experience,  when  Charilaiis  had  grown  up  to  manhood,  only  to 
find  the  state  in  a  worse  plight  than  ever.  The  kings  were  quarrel- 
ing with  each  other,  and  at  the  same  time  striving  to  cast  off  con- 
stitutional checks  and  rule  despotically.  Charilaiis  is  even  called 
one  of  the  "  tyrants  "  of  Greece.  Meanwhile  a  disastrous  war  was 
proceeding,  the  Arcadians  of  Tegea  had  just  inflicted  on  Sparta  the 
greatest  defeat  she  ever  knew,  taken  one  of  her  kings  prisoner,  and 
set  hundreds  of  Spartan  captives  to  work  as  slaves  on  their  upland 
farms. 

In  this  emergency  the  Lacedaemonians,  w-e  are  told,  were  ready 
to  accept  any  sacrifice  necessary  to  preserve  their  state.  Their 
eyes  turned  to  Lycurgus,  and  when  he  came  out  into  the  market- 
place, followed  by  twenty-eight  of  the  wisest  and  noblest  of  the 
citizens,  and  laid  his  schemes  before  the  people,  they  met  with  high 
approval.  The  legend  adds  that,  after  a  time  of  violent  opposition 
by  the  minority,  which  resulted  in  brawls  and  riots,  during  one  of 
which  the  legislator  had  his  eye  struck  out,  the  new  code  was 
accepted. 

What  the  institutions  of  Lycurgus  did  and  did  not  include  it 
is  difificult  to  define  with  accuracy.  But  some  general  results  can 
be  obtained  by  carefully  excising  from  the  reports  of  posterity  those 
so-called  parts  of  his  legislation  for  which  we  know  that  he  cannot 
possibly  have  been  responsible.  That  he  did  not,  for  example,  for- 
bid the  committing  of  his  laws  to  writing  or  the  use  of  coined  money 
we  may  be  certain ;  neither  written  codes  nor  current  cash  were 
known  for  more  than  a  century  after  the  latest  possible  date  at 
which  he  can  be  placed.  Nor  can  he  have  legislated  about  Helots, 
for  the  serf  problem  did  not  come  before  Sparta  so  long  as  she  was 
a  small  poor  state,  penned  in  the  valley  of  the  Upper  Eurotas. 
Neither  did  he  invent  the  Ephoralty,  which  first  appears  during  the 
Messenian  wars,  nor  institute  an  equal  division  of  property.  But 
legend  loves  to  pile  all  the  details  of  an  early  constitution  on  to  a 
single  legislator ;  and,  in  crediting  Lycurgus  with  every  distinctive 
usage  of  the  Spartan  state-system,  the  Greeks  were  but  illustrating 


DORIANS    IN    PELOPONNESUS  63 

the  same  tendency  that  made  our  own  ancestors  say  that  King-  Alfred 
invented  trial  by  jury,  or  divided  England  into  shires. 

The  constitution  of  Lycurgus  was  primarily  intended  to  define 
the  position  of  the  different  parts  of  the  state.  Sparta — like  all 
Greek  states  of  the  Homeric  age — possessed  kings,  a  council  of 
nobles,  and  an  assembly  of  freemen.  But  it  would  seem  that  the 
nobles  were  now  trying  to  deprive  the  kings  of  their  prerogatives, 
while  the  kings  were  endeavoring  to  get  rid  of  all  constitutional 
control.  Meanwhile  the  general  assembly  of  freemen  may  have 
begun  to  assert  a  claim  to  something  more  than  a  right  to  acquiesce 
in  all  that  was  laid  before  it.  Lycurgus  bade  the  Spartans,  in  the 
curt  language  of  his  "  Rhetra,"  "  build  a  temple  to  Zeus  Hellanius 
and  Athena  Hellania;  arrange  the  people  in  tribes  and  in  obes, 
thirty  in  number;  establish  a  Gerousia,  including  the  two  kings; 
and  summon  the  people  from  time  to  time  to  an  assembly  between 
Babyca  and  the  Cnacion ;  the  people  shall  have  the  determining 
voice."  ^  What  was  the  exact  political  meaning  of  the  particular 
worship  to  be  paid  to  Zeus  and  Athena  we  do  not  know ;  perhaps  the 
Dorian  Apollo  had  till  then  been  the  sole  god  of  the  state.  But  the 
other  clauses  of  the  Rhetra  are  clearer.  The  ancient  polity  is  to 
be  systematized :  the  Boule  of  nobles  is  to  be  transformed  into  an 
elected  senate  of  thirty  elders,  among  whom  the  kings  are  always 
to  find  a  place;  the  assembly  of  freemen  is  to  have  a  real  part  in  the 
conduct  of  affairs,  and  to  give  a  decisive  vote  when  the  Gerousia 
is  divided.  The  general  tendency  of  the  laws,  therefore,  would  be 
to  suppress  the  unruliness  of  the  aristocratic  council  of  nobles  by 
cutting  down  its  numbers  and  restricting  it  to  elderly  men;  while 
the  kings,  on  the  other  hand,  are  mulcted  of  their  power  of  pro- 
mulgating laws  on  their  own  authority,  and  incorporated  as  individ- 
ual members  of  the  Gerousia.  The  people  are  to  be  indulged  with 
a  share  in  the  constitution,  though  probably  they  were  only  given 
enough  to  serve  as  a  salve  for  discontent,  and  not  enough  to  enable 
them  to  interfere  to  any  effect  in  politics ;  no  one  ever  accused  Ly- 
curgus of  being  a  democrat.  What  were  the  alterations  made  by 
the  new  ordinances  in  the  tribes  we  cannot  say ;  at  any  rate,  the  old 
Hylleis,  Pamphyli,  and  Dymanes  were  not  abolished.  The  obes, 
again,  are  mysterious — whether  they  are  grouped  by  families  or  by 
localities  is  unknown ;  we  can  only  say  that  they  were  subdivisions 
of  which  ten  went  to  each  tribe. 

2  For  a  good  commentary  on  this,  see  E.  Abbott's  "  History  of  Greece,"  i.  200. 


64  GREECE 

The  Gerousia  consisted  of  thirty  elders,  one  for  each  obe.  The 
kings  were  cx-officio  members,  apparently  representing  the  obes  to 
which  their  families  belonged.  The  other  Gerontes  were  elective; 
they  held  their  seats  for  life,  but  as  no  one  was  eligible  for  the 
post  till  his  sixtieth  year,  the  average  tenure  of  office  cannot  have 
been  very  long.  Like  the  old  council  of  nobles,  which  they  replaced, 
they  acted  as  assessors  to  the  kings  in  the  discussion  of  all  public 
affairs.  But  they  had  this  advantage  over  their  predecessors,  that 
the  king's  voice  only  counted  as  one  of  their  own,  and  was  no  longer 
omnipotent,  for  everything  was  now  decided  by  numerical  ma- 
jority. 

The  assembly  of  freemen,  which  was  known  at  Sparta  as  the 
Apella,  was  composed  of  all  citizens  of  thirty  years  of  age  and  over. 
It  met  between  the  bridge  of  Babyca  and  the  Cnacion,  the  ravine 
of  the  Oenus,  once  a  month.  As  the  old  Homeric  Agora  had  only 
been  able  to  shout  its  assent  or  dissent,  so  the  Spartan  assembly, 
though  given  a  real  part  in  the  constitution,  could  only  vote  by 
acclamation.  The  uncertainty  of  this  method  of  decision  must  have 
thrown  much  power  into  the  hands  of  the  presiding  official,  espe- 
cially when  such  business  as  the  election  of  one  of  the  Gerontes  or 
other  magistrates  from  among  several  candidates  was  in  hand.  As 
Aristotle  observes,  "  the  plan  was  too  childish."  -We  are  even  as- 
sured that  at  some  elections  the  matter  was  settled  by  shutting  up 
the  returning  officer  in  a  room  out  of  sight  of  the  assembly, 
and  compelling  him  to  decide  which  of  the  shouts  that  he  heard 
without  was  loudest!  But  this  device  must  surely  have  been 
invented  by  a  sarcastic  neighbor.  Before  the  assembly,  too,  were 
laid  the  subjects  of  debate  approved  by  the  Gerousia ;  declarations  of 
war,  treaties  of  alliance,  depositions  of  kings,  and  all  such  weighty 
matters  were  to  be  within  its  cognizance.  No  one  could  speak  in  it 
without  the  invitation  of  the  presiding  officer — a  feature,  it  is  to 
be  remarked,  which  was  also  to  be  found  in  the  Roman  Comitia. 
In  historic  times  the  ephors  presided,  but  in  Lycurgus's  day  the 
kings  and  Gerontes  must  have  convened  the  meeting,  as  they  would 
have  done  with  the  Homeric  Agora. 

The  privileges  which  the  new  constitution  left  to  the  kings  are 
shortly  summed  up  by  Herodotus.  In  peace  they  had  the  highest 
seat,  and  a  double  portion  at  all  feasts,  sacrifices,  and  banquets. 
Public  rations  of  corn  and  wine  were  issued  to  them  twice  a  month, 
and  for  meat  they  might  claim  the  chine  of  every  animal  sacrificed 


DORIANS     IN     PELOPONNESUS  65 

in  the  city.  Its  hide  was  also  their  perquisite.  They  were  heredi- 
tary priests  of  Zeus  Lacedaemonius  the  god  of  the  land  and  Zeus 
Uranius  the  god  of  heaven.  They  were  charged  with  choosing 
envoys  to  consult  the  oracles  (Pythii),  and  wnth  appointing  consuls 
(yzpo^evoi)  for  foreign  states.  They  had  also  the  right  of  giving 
away  the  hands  of  orphan  heiresses,  and  of  sanctioning  the  adoption 
of  sons  by  the  childless.  In  war-time  they  were  perpetual  com- 
manders-in-chief. When  the  army  went  forth,  they  marched  out 
first,  and  on  its  return,  they  entered  the  city  last.  A  hundred  chosen 
warriors  guarded  their  persons.  They  might  direct  their  expedi- 
tions against  any  foe  they  chose,  and  the  Spartan  who  strove  to 
turn  their  purpose  was  held  accursed.  When  in  the  field  they  might 
requisition  sheep  and  cattle  according  to  their  good  pleasure.  At 
their  death,  adds  Herodotus,  "  women  go  round  the  city  rattling  on 
a  caldron,  and,  when  the  sound  is  heard,  two  persons  in  every  house, 
a  male  and  a  female,  put  on  mourning  apparel,  and  cut  off  their  hair. 
Horsemen  take  the  tidings  round  Laconia,  and,  on  the  day  of  the 
funeral,  a  vast  multitude  of  the  subjects  and  serfs  of  the  Spartans 
come  flocking  in  to  join  the  townsfolk  in  the  wailings  which  accom- 
pany the  procession." 

A  Spartan  king,  then,  was  left  by  the  Lycurgean  legislation  a 
position  of  honorary  distinction  in  the  state,  a  high  priesthood, 
and  the  command  of  the  army  in  time  of  war.  He  had  become  a 
great  hereditary  state  official,  and  ceased  to  be  a  sovereign. 

If  these  constitutional  reforms  had  comprised  the  whole  work 
of  Lycurgus,  it  is  probable  that  we  should  not  have  heard  very 
much  of  Sparta  in  coming  years.  A  limited  monarchy  and  quasi- 
representative  government  are  excellent  things  in  themselves,  and 
bring  vast  relief  to  a  people  who  have  been  suffering  under  anarchy ; 
but  they  do  not  suffice  to  found  a  great  and  victorious  military  state. 
It  was  his  social  rather  than  his  political  legislation  which  made 
Lycurgus  a  legislator  unique  of  his  kind. 

The  Spartans  were  a  poor  and  rough  people,  maintaining, 
among  hostile  neighbors,  a  constant  armed  struggle  for  existence. 
To  survive  they  had  to  be  continually  prepared  to  fight  superior 
forces  at  a  moment's  notice;  for  their  enemies  dwelt  at  their  very 
doors,  and  no  point  in  the  land  was  a  day's  march  from  the  border. 
Lycurgus  determined  to  secure  them  victory  by  sacrificing  every 
public  and  private  end  in  the  state  to  the  one  object  of  making  his 
countrymen  irresistible  in  battle.     To  do  this  he  turned  the  whole 


66  GREECE 

social  system  of  the  state  into  a  hateful  and  relentless  military 
machine,  which  seized  on  the  citizen  body  and  soul  in  early  boy- 
hood, held  him  enmeshed  all  his  life,  and  only  let  him  loose  when 
he  was  no  longer  fit  to  bear  arms.  This  machine  was  the  famous 
Spartan  aywyrj',  or  training  and  discipline,  of  which  he  was  the 
perfecter,  if  not  the  inventor. 

Lycurgus  was  fortunate  in  having  to  do  with  a  very  primitive 
and  uncivilized  people.  No  race  which  had  stored  up  much  mate- 
rial wealth  or  mental  culture  would  have  consented  for  a  moment 
to  adopt  his  system.  But  the  Spartans  were  a  rude,  perhaps  almost 
a  savage,  people.  We  find  surviving  among  them  practices  which 
mark  a  very  low  grade  in  civilization — the  form  of  marriage  which 
consists  in  the  fiction  of  capturing  the  bride  by  force  from  her 
parents,  the  separation  of  the  sexes  at  meals,  the  hateful  practice 
of  polyandry.  Even  after  their  advance  into  Peloponnesivs,  the 
Dorians  were  only  just  beginning  to  come  within  the  radius  of  civil- 
ization. It  is  a  sufificient  comment  on  the  Lycurgean  training  to 
say  that  the  nearest  parallel  to  it  in  history  is  that  strange  military 
discipline  which  King  Chaka  introduced  among  the  Zulus  in  our 
own  times. 

The  moment  a  Spartan  was  born  the  state  began  to  take  cogni- 
zance of  him.  The  infant  was  carried  before  the  elders,  who  de- 
cided on  his  fate :  if  healthy,  he  was  given  back  to  his  parents  to 
be  reared ;  if  weakly,  he  was  taken  away  and  cast  out  on  Taygetus, 
to  perish  by  exposure.  At  the  age  of  seven  the  boys  were  removed 
from  the  homes  of  their  parents,  and  placed  in  the  public  training- 
house,  where  they  began  to  undergo  the  series  of  toils  which  were 
to  make  up  their  lives.  They  went  barefoot,  and  were  allowed  only 
a  single  garment  winter  and  summer ;  at  night  they  were  compelled 
to  sleep  on  beds  of  rushes,  which  they  gathered  with  their  own 
hands  from  the  bed  of  the  Eurotas.  They  had  to  cook  and  cater 
for  themselves :  the  ration  allowed  them  was  deliberately  made  small 
and  unappetizing,  in  order  that  they  might  be  encouraged  to  add  to 
it  by  hunting  or  even  by  theft.  \Ye  are  assured  that  it  was  habitual 
for  the  boys  to  eke  out  their  meals  by  spoil  from  neighboring 
gardens  and  larders,  and  that  they  were  punished  when  caught, 
"not  for  the  stealing,  but  the  clumsiness  in  being  found  out."  Any 
symptom  of  weakness  or  complaining  were  treated  as  the  severest 
of  offenses ;  Stoic  insensibility  to  pain  was  inculcated  by  continual 
floggings,  tortures,  and  privations,  till  the  most  incredible  callous- 


DORIANS     IN     PELOPONNESUS  67 

ness  was  produced.  Everyone  has  heard  of  the  omnivorous  youth 
who  stole  a  young  fox  for  dinner  and  hid  it  under  his  shirt,  and 
how,  when  detained  iti  company,  he  allowed  the  beast  to  tear  open 
his  stomach  rather  than  to  escape  and  betray  him. 

The  training  of  the  Spartan  boy  was  almost  entirely  confined 
to  gymnastic  and  military  exercises.  Choral  music  was  the  only 
refining  influence  of  any  kind  which  came  within  his  observation. 
The  central  incident  of  his  year's  life  was  the  festival  of  the 
Gymnopaidia,  when  he  contested  with  his  peers  in  exercises  of 
music,  dancing,  running,  and  wrestling. 

At  eighteen  the  Spartan  lad  was  called  a  Melleiren  (MeXXeiprjv)  ; 
at  twenty  he  became  an  Eiren  (  Etprjv ),  or  young  man,  and  left  the 
training-house  for  the  barrack.  He  was  now  drafted  off  into  one 
of  the  public  messes,  which  formed  a  peculiar  feature  of  Spartan 
life.  These  messes  ( "SjvaaLTia)  were  formed  of  fifteen  men  each, 
new  members  being  co-opted  when  a  vacancy  occurred.  They  were 
held  in  public,  and  consisted  of  fixed  rations ;  for  no  citizen  till  he 
reached  the  age  of  sixty  might  take  his  meals  at  home,  and  custom 
dictated  the  uniformity  of  viands.  Each  member  was  responsible 
for  sending  in  his  share  of  the  food  month  by  month ;  the  meals 
consisted  mainly  of  barley-meal,  cheese,  figs,  and  the  unpalatable 
"  black  broth  "  which  was  considered  the  characteristic  dish  of 
Laconia.    Meat  was  only  tasted  on  days  of  sacrifice. 

The  girls  of  Sparta  received  a  training  similar  in  kind  to,  but 
less  severe  than,  that  of  the  boys.  They  were  not  taken  from  their 
mothers,  but  were  formed  into  classes,  and  set  to  compete  in  run- 
ning, wrestling,  and  other  gymnastic  exercises,  so  that  their  bodies 
might  be  fortified  by  exercise.  Though  they  stripped  for  the  con- 
test, their  sports  were  freely  witnessed  by  the  men.  As  might  have 
been  expected,  this  training  bred  a  race  of  buxom,  coarse-minded 
hoydens.  If  the  wives  and  daughters  of  the  Spartans  rose  far 
above  the  secluded  women  of  the  rest  of  Greece,  not  only  in  physical 
beauty  and  vigor,  but  in  courage  and  ability,  they  were,  on  the 
other  hand,  utterly  destitute  of  all  modesty  and  womanly  feeling. 

A  man  at  thirty,  a  woman  at  twenty,  were  expected  to  marry, 
and  grave  political  disabilities  were  inflicted  on  the  Spartan  who 
did  not  enter  wedlock,  and  take  his  share  in  rearing  children  for  the 
state.  Marriage,  however,  did  not  end  the  man's  barrack  life;  he 
still  dwelt  for  some  time  apart  from  his  wife,  and  only  visited  her 
by  stealth  when  his  presence  was  not  required  at  the  Syssitia,  the 


68  GREECE 

drill-ground,  or  the  gymnasium.  It  was  only  after  many  months 
that  he  was  allowed  to  set  up  a  house  of  his  own,  and  remove  his 
wife  to  it;  even  then  he  was  not  freed  from  his  attendance  at  the 
public  meals.  Spartan  wedlock  was  a  duty  owed  to  the  state  rather 
than  a  voluntary  union,  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  the 
sanctity  of  the  marriage  tie  was  lightly  regarded. 

All  these  unnatural  restrictions  on  the  freedom  of  the  individ- 
ual were  directed  to  the  sole  end  of  turning  him  into  a  good  soldier, 
hard  in  body,  callous  in  mind.  Undoubtedly  they  had  the  desired 
effect.  As  a  sarcastic  contemporary  once  remarked,  "  The  Spar- 
tan's life  was  made  so  unpleasant  for  him  that  it  was  no  wonder 
that  he  threw  it  away  without  regret  in  battle."  But  the  victories 
of  the  Lacedaemonians  were  due  not  less  to  their  organization  than 
to  their  unflinching  courage.  While  the  hosts  of  the  other  Greek 
states  went  out  to  war  in  untrained  masses,  and  took  their  orders 
from  a  single  herald,  who  bawled  out  the  commander-in-chief's 
directions,  the  Spartans  had  a  well-arranged  system  of  drill  and  a 
whole  hierarchy  of  officers.  The  army  was  divided  into  bodies 
known  as  the  mora  and  the  lochos,  corresponding  to  our  battalions 
and  companies,  and  was  commanded  by  a  series  of  officers,  ranging 
down  from  the  polemarch,  or  colonel  who  commanded  a  mora,  to 
the  enomotarch,  who  was  a  sergeant  with  twenty-five  men  under 
him.'*  The  commands  which  were  given  by  the  king  were  passed 
down  by  the  polemarchs  and  other  officers  with  such  order  and 
rapidity  that  a  Spartan  army  could  maneuver  with  a  speed  and 
accuracy  that  no  other  Greek  force  could  approach.  This,  as  much 
as  their  courage,  explains  their  constant  successes. 

Life  was  deliberately  made  more  pleasant  for  a  Spartan  when 
he  took  the  field ;  his  rations  were  improved,  his  discipline  somewhat 
relaxed;  even  jests  and  jokes  were  encouraged  around  the  camp- 
fire.  Everything  was  done  to  make  him  look  on  war-time  as  a 
relief  from  the  horrors  of  peace. 

Such  were  the  chief  features  in  the  legislation  of  Lycurgus. 
It  is  probable  that  the  training  received  many  developments  after 
his  death;  and  it  is  certain  that,  in  spite  of  Greek  belief  to  the 
contrary,  his  constitutional  scheme  suffered  many  alterations  in 
later  years.  The  chief  of  these  came  from  the  introduction  of  the 
Ephoralty,  an  office  unknown  to  his  political  system.     The  Ephors 

4  There  were  several  divisions  below  the  lochos,  for  which  we  cannot  supply 
exact  modern  equivalents. 


DORIANS    IN    PELOPONNESUS  69 

came  Into  being-  during  the  period  of  the  Messenian  wars,  largely — 
as  we  read — in  consequence  of  the  continual  absence  of  the  kings  in 
the  field.  As  their  name  shows,  they  were  primarily  intended  to 
act  as  overseers  or  police  magistrates,  but  they  soon  became  the  ir- 
responsible ministers  of  the  state.  They  were  five  in  number,  and 
were  elected  by  the  Apella  for  the  term  of  one  year.  During  that 
period  they  were  the  executive  of  the  community:  they  received 
foreign  embassies,  and  became  the  convening  officers  and  presidents 
of  the  assembly,  dealing  with  that  body  as  freely  as  did  the  Roman 
tribunes  with  the  Comitia.  On  their  own  initiative,  without  the 
sanction  of  either  Gerousia  or  Apella,  they  could  arrest  and  bring 
to  trial  anyone  whom  they  chose,  without  respect  of  persons.  Even 
the  kings  were  subject  to  their  arbitrary  power;  they  threw  Cleo- 
menes  into  prison,  and  bade  Anaxandridas  divorce  his  wife.  In 
historical  times  two  of  them  accompanied  the  king  when  he  went 
out  to  war,  so  that  his  authority  was  constantly  under  their  super- 
vision, and  became  at  last  almost  nominal.  Hence  it  may  be  said 
that  Sparta  had  two  kings  and  five  irresponsible  despots.  Owing 
to  the  ridiculous  form  of  voting  in  the  Apella,  the  Ephors  could 
practically  return  whomsoever  they  chose  to  act  as  their  successors 
in  the  ensuing  year,  and  thus  secured — except  under  very  excep- 
tional circumstances — the  continuation  of  their  own  line  of  policy. 
It  is  now  time  to  see  how  the  machinery  which  Lycurgus  con- 
structed proceeded  to  work  after  his  death. 


Chapter  VIII 

ESTABLISHMENT    OF   SPARTAN    SUPREMACY   IN 
PELOPONNESUS,   743-560  B.C. 

A  RMED  and  organized  by  the  legislation  of  Lycnrgus,  the 
/  \  Spartans  went  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer.  Before 
X  _m-  the  death  of  Charilaiis,  the  king  whose  reign  covers  the 
period  of  reform,  they  had  ah"eady  fallen  upon  and  subdued  the 
weak  Arcadian  tribes  who  dwelt  about  the  sources  of  the  Eurotas, 
in  the  district  of  Aegys.  A  few  years  later  King  Teleclus  succeeded 
in  taking  Amyclae,  the  Achaian  town  at  the  very  gates  of  Sparta, 
which  had  blocked  the  progress  of  Dorian  conquest  down  the  valley 
of  the  Eurotas.  Within  the  next  fifty  years  all  the  dwellers  in 
Laconia,  save  the  Cynurians  of  the  eastern  coast,  had  become  the 
subjects  of  Sparta.  From  the  mountain  borders  of  Tegea  down 
to  the  southernmost  points  of  Taenarum  and  Malea  all  was 
now  hers. 

For  reasons  to  us  unknown,  the  conquerors  dealt  out  very  dif- 
ferent measure  to  the  various  districts  which  they  subdued.  While 
some  were  only  reduced  to  vassalage  and  retained  their  local  cus- 
toms and  certain  rights  of  self-government,  others  were  utterly 
crushed  and  spoiled.  The  inhabitants  of  the  more  favored  places 
became  "  Perioeci,"  those  who  "  dwelt  around  "  the  central  Dorian 
community  of  Sparta.  Those  of  the  less  fortunate  communities 
were  reduced  to  the  condition  of  "  Helots,"  a  title  which  the  Spar- 
tans derived  from  Helos,  the  name  of  a  city  close  by  the  sea-coast 
which  withstood  them  stubbornly,  and  had  to  take  the  consequences 
of  its  obstinacy.  By  these  conquests  the  Spartans  became  masters 
of  a  district  so  large  that  they  themselves  formed  only  a  small  frac- 
tion of  its  population.  The  Perioeci  seem  to  have  been  about  thrice 
as  numerous  as  their  Dorian  lords ;  the  Helots  formed  an  even  larger 
body. 

The  condition  of  the  Perioeci  was  very  tolerable.  Their  only 
obligations  were  to  pay  a  fixed  tribute,  and  to  send  a  contingent  of 
heavily-armed  troops  to  the  Spartan  army.     Hence  they  remained 

70 


SPARTAN    SUPREMACY  71 

743-645  B.C. 

loyal  to  their  suzerain  in  well-nigh  all  the  crises  of  her  history. 
With  the  Helots  it  was  otherwise ;  they  were  reduced  to  a  condition 
of  absolute  serfdom,  and  tied  down  to  the  soil.  Their  land  was 
portioned  out  among  Spartan  proprietors,  who  dwelt  in  the  capital, 
undergoing  their  barrack-life,  and  received  a  fixed  portion  of  the 
produce  of  the  land.  Though  the  individual  Spartan  could  not  sell 
into  slavery  the  Helot  who  farmed  his  estate,  the  Spartan  commu- 
nity could  do  anything  that  it  chose  with  the  serf.  The  Ephors  could 
slay  Helots  without  trial ;  and  we  are  even  told  that  a  secret  police, 
called  the  Crypteia,  existed,  whose  sole  purpose  was  to  go  through 
the  land,  privately  making  away  with  any  Helot  whose  open  dis- 
content or  great  influence  with  his  neighbors  made  him  an  object 
of  suspicion  to  the  government.  The  Helots  were  not  kept  continu- 
ally under  the  eyes  of  their  masters,  nor  were  they  ground  down 
to  starvation  point  by  exorbitant  rents;  but  they  were  so  entirely 
at  the  mercy  of  the  most  arbitrary  caprices  of  their  rulers,  and  so 
utterly  destitute  of  all  political  rights,  that  their  life  was  spent  in 
constant  fear  and  dread.  Not  unnaturally  they  hated  the  Spartans 
with  the  bitterest  hatred,  and  were  always  ready  to  revolt  when  a 
fair  chance  offered.  Nevertheless,  their  masters  so  much  despised 
their  resentment  that  they  armed  them  in  times  of  war,  and  took 
them  into  the  field  to  act  as  light  troops.  Nor  do  we  hear  of  any 
occasion  on  which  the  Helots  deserted  the  Lacedaemonian  standard 
on  the  actual  field  of  battle. 

The  conquest  of  Laconia  was  hardly  completed  before  the 
Spartans  fell  to  blows  Vv^ith  their  neighbors  to  the  west — the  mixed 
race  of  Dorians,  Caucones,  and  Achaians,  who  dwelt  beyond  the 
range  of  Mount  Taygetus,  in  the  fertile  valley  of  Messenia.  Some 
stories  say  that  the  war  arose  from  the  cattle-lifting  which  always 
prevails  on  the  frontier  line  of  two  primitive  tribes.  Others  say 
that  the  origin  of  it  was  the  slaying  of  the  Spartan  king  Teleclus 
in  a  sudden  brawl  within  the  temple  of  Artemis  Limnatis, — a  border 
shrine  where  Laconian  and  Messenian  met  with  equal  rights  of 
sacrifice. 

The  Messenian  wars  extended  over  a  period  of  some  ninety 
years,  though  a  long  interval  breaks  the  continuity  between  the  two 
struggles.  The  first  war  seems  to  have  begun  about  743  b.c.^  the 
second  ended  about  645  b.c. 

We  are  unfortunately  destitute  of  any  continuous  narrative  of 
this  period  which  commands  any  credit  whatever.      The  only  con- 


'7 '2  G  R  K  I-:  C  E 

745-645   B.C. 

temporary  records  of  any  kind  which  have  survived  are  the  frag- 
ments of  the  Spartan  poet  Tyrtaeus,^  in  which  he  exhorts  his  coun- 
trymen to  persevere  in  the  second  Messenian  war,  encouraging 
them  to  emulate  the  deeds  which  "  their  fathers'  fathers ''  had 
wrought  in  the  first  struggle.  The  details  of  the  history  of  the 
period  which  Pausanias  collected  from  the  annalist  Alyron  and  the 
epic  poet  Rhianus  are  quite  valueless.  Those  authors  lived  in  the 
third  century  B.C.,  separated  by  five  hundred  years  from  the  events 
they  described,  and  were  hopelessly  contradictory  as  to  their  facts. 
Myron,  for  example,  placed  in  the  times  of  the  first  war  Aristo- 
menes,  the  great  national  hero  of  Messenia,  while  Rhianus  insisted 
that  his  exploits  were  performed  in  the  second  war,  w^hich  was 
divided  from  the  first  by  not  less  than  fifty  years!  It  is  obvious 
that  Rhianus  used  to  the  full  the  license  of  the  poet,  while  Myron 
cannot  have  had  anything  better  to  guide  him  than  Messenian  folk- 
tales, for  the  Spartans  never  wrote  the  history  of  their  wars.  We 
may  imagine,  as  a  parallel,  what  sort  of  a  history  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  conc[uest  of  Britain  could  be  written  if  we  had  to  depend 
on  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  and  the  legends  of  King  Arthur.  Ac- 
cording to  the  tale  which  has  come  down  to  us,  the  Messenians  did 
all  the  deeds  of  daring,  while  the  Spartans  were  nevertheless  vic- 
torious— a  manifest  impossibility! 

If  we  can  extract  any  truth  from  the  legends,  the  Spartans 
began  the  war  by  pushing  across  the  ridge  of  Taygetus,  and  seizing 
the  fortress  of  Amphea  on  the  IMessenian  side,  which  they  employed 
as  their  base  of  operations.  From  this  point  they  harried  the  open 
country,  and  kept  the  towns  of  the  Messenians  in  a  chronic  state  of 
blockade.  After  two  indecisive  battles,  the  }*Iessenians  abandoned 
their  minor  fortress  and  concentrated  themselves  on  the  central 
post  of  Mount  Ithome,  the  strongest  citadel  as  well  as  the  holiest 
sanctuary  in  their  land.  Meanwhile  the  plain  of  the  Pamisus  was 
abandoned  to  the  ravages  of  the  enemy.  Although  the  cliffs  and 
walls  of  Ithome  were  strong,  the  party  that  was  continually  upon 
the  defensive,  and  never  took  the  initiative  in  the  war,  was  bound  to 
grow  weaker  and  weaker.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  Messenian  leader 
Aristodemus  oft'ered  up  his  daughter  as  a  human  sacrifice  to  secure 
the  favor  of  Zeus  Ithomates,  the  national  god  of  Messenia.  War 
and  famine  thinned  the  ranks  of  his  followers;  and  after  holding 

1  The  tradition  which  makes  Tyrtaeus  an  Athenian  settled  in  Sparta  is  prob- 
ably valueless. 


SPARTAN    SUPREMACY  73 

723-708  B.C. 

out  in  his  fastness  for  twelve  years,  Aristodemus  slew  himself  in 
despair.  Shortly  after  Ithome  fell,  and  the  Messenian  resistance 
collapsed  {^22,  b.c). 

After  the  termination  of  the  war,  the  majority  of  the  noble 
families  of  Messena  went  into  exile,  some  joining  in  the  coloniza- 
tion of  the  town  of  Rhegium  in  Italy,  while  others  retired  to  Ionia. 
The  bulk  of  the  population  remained  behind,  and  became  counted 
among  the  Perioeci  of  Sparta,  though  they  seem  to  have  had  much 
more  unfavorable  terms  granted  to  them  than  most  of  that  class, 
being  compelled  to  pay  half  the  produce  of  their  lands  as  rent  to 
the  conquerors. 

Two  constitutional  crises  occurred  in  Sparta  in  consequence  of 
the  first  Messenian  war.  The  continual  absence  of  the  kings  in 
the  field  led  to  a  block  in  public  business,  which  was  only  ended  by 
the  appointment  of  the  Ephors,  to  supply  the  state  with  official 
heads  in  the  place  of  the  distant  monarchs.  When  the  war  ended, 
the  Heraclidae  were  unable  to  do  away  with  the  Ephoralty,  and  the 
new  "  overseers  "  retained  their  power.  The  wife  of  King  Theo- 
pompus  taunted  him  with  leaving  the  royal  prerogative  to  his  chil- 
dren less  than  he  had  received  it,  but  he  is  said  to  have  replied  that 
"  it  would  be  the  more  lasting  for  being  the  more  limited."  The 
second  trouble  arose  from  the  fact  that  the  constant  thinning  of 
the  ranks  of  the  Spartan  youth  by  the  long-continued  campaigns 
led  to  the  marriage  of  many  women,  who  could  find  no  husbands  of 
equal  rank,  with  members  of  the  class  of  Perioeci.  The  Spartans, 
when  the  war  was  over,  refused  to  recognize  the  offspring  of  such 
unions  as  legitimate,  and  branded  them  Vv'ith  the  name  of  "  Par- 
theniae,"  or  bastards.  The  young  men  were  numerous  enough  to 
unite  under  one  Phalanthus  in  a  conspiracy  to  overthrow  the  con- 
stitution of  Lycurgus.  Their  plot  was  discovered  in  time  to  pre- 
vent its  outbreak,  but  instead  of  taking  a  bloody  vengeance  on 
their  half-brothers,  the  Spartans  compelled  them  to  leave  Laconia 
in  a  body.  They  sought  Italy  under  the  direction  of  the  Delphic 
oracle,  and  Phalanthus  became  the  founder  of  the  great  and  wealthy 
city  of  Tarentum  (708  B.C.). 

The  possession  of  Messenia  brought  Sparta  into  contact  with 
the  affairs  of  the  Western  Peloponnese.  She  is  found  ere  long 
allied  with  Elis,  and  therefore  as  the  enemy  of  the  Pisatans,  who 
were  constantly  striving  to  preserve  their  autonomy  against  the 
Eleians.     Sparta  also  began  to  encroach  on  Western  Arcadia,  and 


74.  G  R  E  E  C  F. 

Circa  675-650  B.C. 

got  possession  of  Phigaleia,  the  southern  border-town  of  that  coun- 
try. She  seems  to  have  been  involved  at  the  same  time  in  struggles 
with  Tegea  and  other  Arcadian  states. 

But  the  next  important  crisis  in  the  history  of  the  Spartans 
came  about  when  Pheidon  of  Argos  strove  to  extend  his  supremacy 
over  the  whole  Peloponnesus  (probably  circ.  675-660  B.C.).  We 
first  hear  of  this  struggle  between  Argos  and  Sparta  when,  in  669 
B.C.,  the  Lacedaemonian  army  was  utterly  beaten  at  Hysiae  during 
an  attempt  to  invade  Argolis.  The  next  year,  if  our  date  for  Phei- 
don can  be  trusted,  the  Argive  army  appeared  in  the  Western  Pelo- 
ponnese,  and  assisted  the  Pisatans  to  celebrate  the  Olympic  games, 
having  first  defeated  the  allied  Spartans  and  Eleians  in  battle. 

It  must  have  been  about  the  same  moment  that  the  Spartans 
were  startled  by  a  desperate  rising  of  their  vassals  in  Messenia.  The 
fact  that  Lacedaemon  was  engaged  in  an  unsuccessful  war  aroused 
the  mountaineers  of  the  northern  border,  and  soon  all  the  country 
was  up  in  arms.  The  Messenians  found  a  leader  in  Aristomenes, 
a  young  hero  of  whom  the  most  impossible  exploits — all  borrowed 
from  the  epic  of  Rhianus — are  recounted.  He  slew,  we  read,  three 
hundred  enemies  with  his  own  hand ;  he  visited  Sparta  by  night,  and 
hung  up  a  shield  in  the  temple  of  Athena  by  way  of  bravado ;  he  was 
thrice  taken  prisoner,  but  always  escaped ;  once  he  was  even  thrown 
into  the  "  Ceadas,"  or  pit  of  execution  at  Sparta,  but  escaped  un- 
injured, and  found  his  way  out  by  a  subterranean  cleft  in  the 
rocks. 

This  second  Messenian  war  seemed  for  several  years  likely  to 
result  in  the  liberation  of  the  land.  The  Lacedaemonians  were  op- 
pressed with  many  enemies,  for  besides  the  Messenians  they  had 
to  fight  Argos  and  her  subject  states,  together  with  a  league  of 
Arcadian  tribes  under  Aristocrates,  King  of  Orchomenus.  As  allies 
they  could  only  count  on  the  Corinthians,  who  were  anxious  to 
throw  off  the  hegem.ony  of  Argos,  and  the  Eleians,^  who  are  in- 
variably found  on  the  opposite  side  from  their  neighbors  of  Pisa. 
It  is,  therefore,  not  surprising  that  Sparta  suffered  heavily;  she  saw 
the  valley  of  the  Eurotas  itself  ravaged,  and  suffered  at  least  one 
great  defeat  in  the  open  field.  But  the  institutions  of  Lycurgus 
were  strong  enough  to  stand  the  strain ;  beaten  but  unconquered 
the  Spartans  doggedly  held  on  till  the  tide  turned.  At  their  darkest 
hour  they  were  put   in  good  heart  by  the  poems  of   Tyrtaeus, 

2  See  Grote,  ii.  434,  note  3. 


SPARTAN    SUPREMACY  75 

Circa   645-581    B.C. 

who  sang  how  the  spirit  of  loyalty  and  military  honor  must  finally 
triumph  over  the  fitful  energy  of  revolted  serfs  and  the  disunion  of 
jealous  allies.  At  last  the  league  against  Sparta  broke  up.  Pheidon 
of  Argos  fell  in  battle ;  Aristocrates  the  Arcadian  betrayed  his  allies, 
and  caused  their  decisive  defeat  by  withdrawing  his  troops  in  the 
midst  of  the  conflict;  Aristomenes  was  driven  into  the  hill-fortress 
of  Eira,  just  as  Aristodemus  in  the  earlier  war  had  been  pent  up 
on  Ithome.  It  was  to  no  purpose  that  he  maintained  himself 
therein,  and  pushed  his  raids  far  afield  when  the  blockade  grew 
slack.  After  eleven  years  of  resistance,  the  death-agony  of  the 
Messenian  nation  came  to  its  close.  The  Lacedaemonians  forced 
their  way  into  Eira  by  escalade,  and  the  remains  of  the  garrison 
was  lucky  in  obtaining  a  safe  conduct  to  retire  from  the  land. 
Legend  ascribed  the  fall  of  the  fortress  to  treachery;  but  the  con- 
quered race  always  consoles  itself  with  some  such  cry,  and  it  is 
evident  that  Eira  had  long  been  doomed.  Aristomenes  wandered 
away  to  Rhodes,  and  died  there;  many  of  his  chiefs  found  new 
homes  in  Arcadia ;  but  the  bulk  of  the  nation  were  degraded  to  the 
position  of  Helots,  and  lay  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  Sparta  for  two 
hundred  years  ere  it  could  nerve  itself  to  another  movement  (circ. 

645  B.C.). 

The  last  echoes  of  the  Messenian  war  did  not  die  out  till  a  fev/ 
years  later.  The  Arcadians,  who  had  stoned  their  treacherous 
king  Aristocrates,  and  abolished  the  kingship  of  his  house,  joined 
the  Pisatans  in  a  last  attempt  at  resistance.  In  644  B.C.  they  even 
seized  Olympia,  and  celebrated  the  games  in  defiance  of  Elis  and 
Sparta,  but  shortly  after  their  enemies  fell  upon  them  with  crush- 
ing force.  The  Pisatans  became  the  vassals  of  Elis,  a  position 
which  they  retained  for  half  a  century,  till  a  revolt  in  581  B.C.  gave 
their  masters  an  excuse  for  utterly  destro3nng  the  city. 

Sparta  now  turned  on  Arcadia  and  Argolis.  The  history  of  the 
century  which  follows  the  second  Messenian  war  is  in  Peloponnesus 
merely  the  tale  of  the  subjugation  of  the  whole  of  the  peninsula  by 
the  continual  encroachments  of  the  Lacedaemonians.  The  successes 
of  Sparta  were  not,  how^ever,  followed  any  longer  by  the  extension 
of  the  limits  of  Laconia.  The  victors  contented  themselves  with 
reducing  the  vanquished  to  the  condition  of  subject-allies,  bound  to 
follow  their  standard  in  war.  With  their  internal  affairs  they 
hardly  ever  interfered,  and  therefore  the  hegemony  of  Sparta  was 
a  comparatively  light  burden,  and  might  even  be  said  not  to  dis- 


76 


GREECE 


660-547    B.C. 

turb  the  desire   for  "  autonomy  "  which  reigned   in   every  Greek 
breast. 

Tegea  bore  the  first  brunt  of  the  Spartan  attack ;  its  desperate 
resistance  won  favorable  terms  for  its  citizens,  who,  on  submission, 
were  restored  to  full  control  of  their  local  affairs.  Tegea  served  as 
a  base  of  attack  equally  against  Central  Arcadia  and  Argolis.  Of 
the  gradual  subjugation  of  the  Arcadians  we  have  few  details,  but 


the  history  of  the  struggle  with  Argos  is  better  known.  That  state 
had  been  terribly  enfeebled  by  the  death  of  Pheidon.  Corinth  had 
completely  established  its  independence ;  and  Sicyon  had  also  fallen 
away  from  the  Argive  empire,  and,  under  the  tyrants  of  the  house 
of  Orthagoras,  was  rising  to  power  and  importance.  Even  Epi- 
daurus,  in  the  very  peninsula  of  Argolis,  had  become  completely 
autonomous  before  the  end  of  the  seventh  century.     Argos  was 


SPARTAN     SUPREMACY  77 

583-560  B.C. 

therefore  overweighted  in  the  contest  with  Sparta,  yet  she  held  out 
vigorously,  and  did  not  finally  lose  her  hold  on  Cynuria,  the  land 
along  the  Laconian  coast,  till  as  late  as  547  b.  c.  In  that  year  was 
fought  the  famous  battle  of  the  six  hundred  champions,  the  prize 
being  the  district  of  Thyrea,  the  last  external  possession  of  Argos. 
Legend  declares  that  the  conflict  was  so  fierce  and  bloody  that  only 
two  Argives  and  one  Spartan  survived.  The  Argives  hastened 
home  to  carry  the  news  of  their  supposed  victory,  for  they  had 
overlooked  their  sole  surviving  enemy.  Othryades  the  Spartan 
stayed  on  the  battlefield,  and  set  up  a  trophy  of  the  arms  of  slain 
Argives.  Each  nation,  therefore,  considered  itself  victorious,  and 
the  dispute  was  only  settled  by  a  general  engagement,  in  which  the 
Lacedaemonians  won  the  day.  Othryades  slew  himself  on  the 
battlefield,  disdaining  to  appear  in  Sparta  as  the  only  one  of  her 
three  hundred  champions  who  had  escaped  the  chances  of  war. 
Henceforth  Cynuria  was  entirely  in  the  hands  of  Sparta;  Argos 
was  too  maimed  to  be  able  to  stir  for  another  whole  generation. 

The  influence  which  would  seem  to  have  retarded  the  complete 
conquest  of  Peloponnesus  by  Sparta  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixth 
century  was  the  alliance  of  the  towns  of  its  northern  parts  in  an 
anti-Dorian  league.  Between  660  and  650  b.  c.  Corinth  and  Sicyon 
experienced  revolts  which  cast  out  the  ruling  Dorian  oligarchy, 
and  placed  tyrants  of  Ionian  race  on  the  throne.  These  two  houses 
the  Cypselidae  and  the  Orthagoridae,  as  they  were  called  from  the 
names  of  their  founders,  were  strongly  anti-Spartan  in  their  policy. 
It  was  not  till  they  were  overthrown,  the  Corinthian  family  in 
583  B.  c.  and  the  Sicyonian  about  560  b.  c,  that  Sparta  became  as 
supreme  in  Northern  Peloponnesus  as  she  was  already  in  its 
southern  and  central  portions.  Corinth  and  Sicyon,  their  tyrants 
expelled,  joined  the  Laconian  alliance,  and  became  some  of  its 
firmest  supporters.  Argos  alone,  now  reduced  to  a  small  state  in 
the  plain  of  Inachus,  held  aloof  in  sulky  discontent,  biding  her  time. 
All  the  rest  of  the  peninsula  acknowledged  the  hegemony  of  Sparta. 

Such,  after  two  centuries  of  constant  war,  were  the  fruits  of 
the  legislation  of  Lycurgus.  A  body  of  Spartans,  never  more  than 
ten  thousand  strong,  had  succeeded  in  reducing  to  their  vassalage 
the  whole  of  the  states  of  Peloponnesus. 


Chapter     IX 

AGE    OF   COLONIZATION 

THE  eighth  and  seventh  centuries,  the  period  which  saw 
Sparta  lay  the  foundation  of  her  supremacy  in  Pelopon- 
nesus, witnessed  in  the  greater  part  of  Greece  a  revival  of 
those  migratory  impulses  which  had  first  made  themselves  felt  at 
the  time  of  the  Dorian  invasion.  But  the  cause  of  the  movement 
was  now  changed ;  it  was  not  external  pressure,  but  internal  ex- 
pansion, that  sent  the  emigrants  afield.  The  patriarchal  constitu- 
tion of  the  prehistoric  Greek  states  had  never  recovered  the  blow 
which  was  dealt  it  by  the  widespread  transference  of  populations 
in  the  eleventh  century.  The  gradual  decay  of  monarchy  and  rise 
of  oligarchy  was  the  main  feature  of  the  centuries  which  immedi- 
ately followed  the  great  migrations.  The  misgovernment  of  which 
the  oligarchies  were  usually  guilty  made  life  at  home  intolerable  for 
men  of  spirit,  and  set  them  dreaming  of  escape  to  a  freer  atmos- 
phere. Men  of  wealth  who  were  excluded  from  a  share  in  the 
government  of  the  state  by  their  mean  birth,  and  men  of  family 
who  Vvcre  kept  back  by  their  poverty,  were  alike  ready  to  depart. 
The  lower  classes  were  no  less  eager  to  escape  from  misgovernment 
and  oppression.  But  this  disposition  of  feeling  might  have  found 
its  vent  in  mere  civil  broils,  if  the  time  had  not  been  propitious  for 
emigration. 

Not  only  were  the  Greeks  gradually  becoming  more  adven- 
turous seamen,  but  the  Phoenicians,  the  rivals  who  had  long  divided 
with  them  the  trade  of  the  Eastern  Mediterranean,  were  now  receiv- 
ing a  series  of  blows  at  home  which  enfeebled  their  resisting  power 
further  afield.  The  ninth  century  saw  the  extension  of  the  Assyrian 
empire  across  the  Euphrates,  which  brought  it  into  hostile  contact 
with  Phoenicia.  The  eighth  century  was  a  time  of  continued  trou- 
ble for  the  great  seaports.  Aradus  was  captured  by  Tiglath-Pileser 
in  742  B.c.^  after  a  siege  of  three  years.  Shalmaneser  V.  com- 
pelled Tyre  by  force  to  resume  a  homage  which  she  had  endeavored 
to  cast  off.     Both  Tyre  and  Sidon  were  constantly  revolting,  and  as 

78 


COLONIZATION  79 

726-680   B.C. 

constantly  being  reduced  to  pay  tribute,  during  the  reigns  of  Sargon 
and  Sennacherib  (726-681  B.C.).  The  latter  town  was  sacked  and 
almost  completely  destroyed  by  Esarhaddon  in  680  B.C.  All  these 
wars  weakened  the  grasp  of  the  Phoenicians  on  the  great  trade 
routes  which  they  had  so  long  shared  with  the  Greeks,  and  by  the 
seventh  century  they  had  been  completely  driven  out  of  the  Aegean 
and  the  Ionian  Sea. 

The  first  Greek  cities  on  which  the  impulse  towards  emigration 
fell  were  the  two  Ionic  seaports  of  Chalcis  and  Eretria.  Both  were 
situated  in  well-protected  harbors  on  the  Euboean  Strait :  Chalcis 
lay  on  the  Euripus,  and  looked  north ;  Eretria,  separated  from 
Chalcis  by  twelve  miles  of  fertile  plain,  looked  south  tov/ards  the 
Cyclades.  The  colonial  energy  of  both  these  towns  was  stimulated 
by  oligarchies  founded  on  wealth,  for  the  Ionic  states  seem  generally 
to  have  drifted  into  the  hands  of  a  plutocracy,  while  in  the  rest  of 
Greece  the  oligarchies  rested  on  birth.  The  point  towards  which 
the  first  swarm  of  emigrants  from  Chalcis  and  Eretria  directed 
themselves  v/as  the  northwestern  angle  of  the  Aegean.  Here  a 
bold  peninsula  runs  out  from  the  mainland  of  Macedonia,  and 
divides  into  three  long  headlands  which  stretch  far  into  the  sea. 
The  region  had  the  same  mixture  of  promontory  and  gulf,  moun- 
tain and  shore-plain,  which  prevails  in  Greece  itself.  Moreover, 
its  rocks  were  rich  in  silver  ore,  and  the  Euboeans  (who  had  long 
been  working  copper-mines  in  their  own  island)  were  both  eager 
and  able  to  turn  it  to  account. 

Within  the  first  fifty  years  of  the  eighth  century  Chalcis  and 
Eretria  had  planted  more  than  thirty  towns  along  the  three  head- 
lands of  Chalcidice,  as  the  peninsula  was  ere  long  called  from  the 
Chalcidians  who  formed  the  larger  half  of  the  settlers.  Some  of 
these  places  were  mere  mining  settlements,  but  others  grew  into 
important  towns  with  considerable  stretches  of  territory'.  Such  a 
place  was  the  Eretrian  colony  of  Mende  on  Pallene — the  western- 
most and  least  mountainous  of  the  three  headlands — a  town  long 
famous  for  its  rich  vineyards.  Of  the  colonies  of  Chalcis,  Torone 
and  Sermyle  were  the  largest.  Speaking  roughly,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  Eretrians  gravitated  towards  the  western  part  of  Chal- 
cidice, while  the  towns  founded  from  Chalcis  occupied  its  central 
and  eastern  regions.  Many  of  the  original  inhabitants  were 
"  Pelasgic,"  and  seem  to  have  amalgamated  very  easily  with  the 
Greek  settlers.     After  the  Euboeans  had  for  some  time  been  estab- 


80  GREECE 

Circa  780-750  B.C. 

lished  in  Chalcidice,  colonies  from  other  places  came  to  extend  the 
area  of  settlement;  the  Ionic  islanders  of  Andros  planted  towns  on 
the  Thracian  coast,  northeast  of  Mount  Athos;  the  Doric  Corin- 
thians established  the  important  city  of  Potidaea,  northward  of  the 
Eretrian  settlements  in  Pallene. 

While  Chalcis  and  Eretria  were  acting  as  pioneers  to  the  Greeks 
of  Europe,  Miletus  was  playing  the  same  part  for  those  of  Asia. 
A  few  centuries  had  sufficed  to  develop  the  settlements  which  the 
lonians  had  planted  on  the  Lydian  and  Carian  shore  into  great  and 
flourishing  cities,  fit  to  be  themselves  the  mothers  of  many  colonies. 
Miletus,  the  port  at  the  mouth  of  the  Maeander,  took  the  lead  in 
maritime  extension.  The  city  had  lost  its  royal  line  in  the  early 
part  of  the  eighth  century,  and  fallen  into  the  hands  of  a  plutoc- 
racy. The  race  for  wealth  became  the  sole  occupation  of  its  citi- 
zens, and  a  sea-going  life  was  the  easiest  course  to  arrive  at  the  goal. 
So  numerous  did  the  Milesian  sea-traders  become  that  they  formed 
a  party  in  the  state  known  as  the  Aeinautae,  "  the  men  never  off  the 
water."  The  first  energy  of  the  Milesians  was  turned  to  the  north- 
east angle  of  the  Aegean,  as  that  of  the  Euboeans  had  been  to  the 
northwest.  Pushing  beyond  the  Aeolic  settlements  in  the  Troad, 
they  endeavored  to  seize  the  Hellespont  and  the  route  towards  the 
Black  Sea.  The  Phoenicians  were  already  in  possession ;  their 
factory  of  Lampsacus  commanded  the  passage  into  the  Sea  of 
Marmora,  and  their  vessels  had  sought  out  the  furthest  recesses 
of  Paphlagonia  and  Colchis.  There  must  have  been  a  struggle  in 
the  straits  for  the  monopoly  of  trade,  but  its  details  have  not  come 
down  to  us.  The  base  from  which  the  Milesians  operated  was  their 
first  settlement  Cyzicus,  a  town  placed  on  the  neck  of  a  peninsula 
which  runs  out  into  the  Propontis.  When  once  firmly  established 
within  the  Hellespont,  they  proceeded  to  spread  far  and  wide  to  the 
north  and  east.  The  mysterious  sea  which  had  only  been  known 
as  ^xeinos,  "  the  i;fhospitable,"  and  whose  shores  legend  had  peo- 
pled with  wonders  and  perils,  was  ere  long  fringed  with  Greek 
factories,  and  changed  its  name  to  "  £i/xeinos,"  as  its  harbors 
became  known.  It  would  seem  to  have  been  the  inexhaustible 
wealth  of  the  fisheries  of  the  Black  Sea  which  first  tempted  the 
Greeks  forward;  but  other  and  not  less  valuable  sources  of  wealth 
were  soon  discovered.  The  mountainous  southern  shore  of  the 
Euxine  was  rich  in  timber,  iron,  copper,  and  red-lead.  The  flat 
northern  shore  was  a  vast  corn-land,  whose  breadth  surprised  even 


COLONIZATION  81 

Circa  750-680  B.C. 

lonians  accustomed  to  the  fertile  valley  of  the  Maeander.  Gold 
was  to  be  found  in  Colchis,  and  also  came  down  a  trade  route  from 
the  Urals,  which  ended  on  the  shores  of  the  "  Maeotic  Lake,"  which 
we  know  as  the  Sea  of  Azov.  Between  the  middle  of  the  eighth 
century  and  the  end  of  the  seventh  the  Euxine  had  become  a  Milesian 
sea.  On  the  most  projecting  headland  of  Paphlagonia  the  rich 
colony  of  Sinope  ^  had  supplanted  an  old  Asiatic  settlement,  and 
become  the  mart  of  Northern  Asia  Minor.  To  right  and  left  other 
Milesian  factories  formed  an  unbroken  chain  between  the  Bosphorus 
and  Colchis.  Less  than  a  century  after  her  own  foundation,  Sinope 
was  able  to  plant,  on  a  table-shaped  rock  far  to  the  east,  her  flourish- 
ing daughter-town  of  Trapezus  (Trebizond),  destined  in  ages  then 
far  distant  to  supplant  her  as  the  center  of  the  trade  of  the  Euxine. 

Settlement  was  harder  on  the  western  shore,  among  the  bar- 
barous Thracians,  than  it  had  been  In  Asia.  But  it  began  in  the 
seventh  century,  and  after  a  time  a  "  Pentapolis  "  of  five  allied 
towns — Odessus,  Callatis,  Tomi,  Apollonia,  and  Mesembria — rose 
between  the  mouth  of  the  Danube  and  the  entrance  of  the  Bos- 
phorus.    Of  these  places  the  first  four  were  colonies  of  Miletus. 

Beyond  the  Danube  to  the  north  the  Greek  explorer  found  the 
plains  of  Southern  Russia  held  by  the  nomadic  tribes  of  the  Scyth- 
ians— a  race  who  dwelt  in  tents  and  wagons,  and  wandered  at 
large  on  the  steppes  with  their  flocks  and  herds,  without  possessing 
any  fixed  abode.  They  made  no  objection  to  the  settlement  of  the 
newcomers  on  their  shores,  for  they  had  enough  and  to  spare  of 
land,  and  had  never  thought  of  utilizing  the  bays  and  lagoons  of 
their  coast.  In  return  for  metal-work,  cloth,  linen,  and  wine,  they 
sold  to  the  settlers  the  hides  of  their  oxen,  and  the  gold  and  furs 
which  came  to  them  from  the  tribes  of  the  far  North.  Nor  did  they 
object  when  the  Greeks  took  to  tilling  the  soil,  and  made  the  lower 
valleys  of  the  Dnieper  and  Bug  the  great  wheatfield  of  the  world. 
Some  of  the  Scythians  were  even  influenced  by  their  visitors  enough 
to  make  them  turn  their  attention  to  husbandry.  The  chief  towns 
in  their  land  were  Olbia,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Borysthenes  (Dnie- 
per), Panticapaeum,  on  the  strait  which  joins  the  Euxine  and  the 
Maeotic  lake,  and  Tanais,  the  last  outpost  of  Greek  civilization, 
which  lay  far  off  to  the  northeast,  at  the  estuary  of  the  Don.  All 
these  were  colonies  of  Miletus. 

1  The  dates  usually  given  for  the  foundation  of  Sinope  and  Trapezus  are  ob- 
viously too  early.     They  must  be  considerably  posterior  to  Cyzicus. 


82  GREECE 

56G    B.C. 

Where  the  Milesians  worked  on  a  grand  scale,  other  Ionic 
states  followed  with  more  timid  steps.  Phocaea  was  the  only  town 
which  sent  a  colony  to  the  Euxine,  and  her  settlement  of  Amisus  was 
not  founded  till  566  b.c.  But  in  the  northeastern  Aegean  and  on 
the  Propontis  several  important  places  were  established  by  the  neigh- 
bors of  Miletus.  Perinthus,  on  the  Thracian  coast  of  the  Propontis, 
was  settled  by  Samos.  The  larger  and  richer  town  of  Abdera, 
hard  by  the  mouth  of  the  Nestus,  was  founded  by  Clazomenae, 
Maronea,  also  in  Thrace  but  further  east,  was  a  Chian  colony. 
The  islanders  of  Paros  seized  the  great  Phoenician  stronghold  of 
Thasos,  and  established  a  flourishing  state  on  the  resources  of  its 
silver-mines. 

But  it  was  the  Dorian  state  of  Megara,  in  European  Greece, 
which  most  nearly  approached  the  achievements  of  IMiletus.  The 
misrule  of  the  oligarchy  of  birth,  which  governed  the  town  in  the 
seventh  century,  seems  to  have  been  the  fruitful  source  of  emigra- 
tion. Megarians  founded  Astacus  and  Chalcedon,  in  Bithynia,  and 
a  little  later  seized  the  all-important  haven  of  Byzantium  on  the 
Bosphorus, — a  spot  so  pointed  out  by  nature  as  the  site  for  a  great 
town  that  the  Delphic  oracle  bade  the  settlers  "  build  opposite  the 
city  of  the  blind."  This  saying  was  a  reflection  on  the  discernment 
of  their  brethren,  who  had  preferred  to  occupy  the  far  less  eligible 
site  of  Chalcedon,  on  the  opposite  shore.  Some  years  later  the 
Megarians  found  their  way  from  Byzantium  into' the  Euxine,  and 
built  Mesembria,  in  Thrace,  and  Heraclea-Chersonesus,  in  the  Tauric 
Chersonese  (Crimea) — a  town  which,  twenty-five  centuries  later, 
was  to  be  famous  as  Sebastopol.  A  second  Heraclea,  on  the 
Bithynian  coast  of  the  Euxine,  was  also  a  flourishing  IMegarian 
colony. 

While  the  Aegean  and  the  Euxine  were  gradually  being  sur- 
rounded with  a  ring  of  Hellenic  cities,  a  not  less  important  move- 
ment of  colonization  was  taking  place  in  the  West,  along  the  shores 
of  the  Ionian  Sea. 

At  how  early  a  date  the  Greeks  had  begun  to  visit  Italy  and 
Sicily,  it  is  hard  to  say.  Even  in  the  Odyssey  there  seems  to  be 
some  dim  knowledge  of  lands  to  the  West,  and  tradition  claimed 
that  Cumae  in  Campania,  the  first  Greek  town  in  Italy,  was  founded 
so  far  back  as  the  eleventh  century.  This  date  is  probably  erro- 
neous, for  no  other  city  can  show  an  origin  extending  beyond  the 
middle   of  the   eighth   century.      At  the  same  time,   Cumae  was 


COLONIZATION  83 

800-724   B.C. 

undoubtedly  founded  earlier  than  any  other  city  beyond  the  Ionian 
Sea,  and  may  have  existed  by  the  year  800  B.C. 

Chalcis  and  Eretria  were  the  pioneers  of  exploration  in  the 
West  just  as  they  had  been  in  Thrace.  Seeking  for  opportunities 
of  trade,  their  vessels  coasted  round  Malea  and  Taenarum,  and  up 
the  western  coast  of  Greece.  The  foundation  of  Corcyra,  on  its 
island  opposite  Epirus,  by  an  Eretrian  colony,  is  the  first  landmark 
in  this  chapter  of  history.  To  cross  from  Corcyra  to  the  lapygian 
promontory,  the  heel  of  Italy,  is  only  a  matter  of  a  few  hours,  and 
then  the  course  lies  clear  along  the  Calabrian  coast. 

Italy  and  Sicily,  at  the  moment  of  their  discovery,  were  mainly 
occupied  by  a  number  of  tribes — Messapians  and  Oenotrians,  Sicels 
and  Sicanians — whom  the  Greeks,  vaguely  recognizing  a  distant 
kinship  with  themselves,  called  "  Pelasgic."  But  the  remoter 
regions  of  both  countries  were  held  by  more  alien  races.  The 
Phoenicians  of  Carthage  possessed  the  western  extremity  of  Sicily ; 
the  mysterious  people  who  called  themselves  Rasena — though  the 
Greeks  knew  them  as  "  Tyrrheni,"  and  the  Romans  as  "  Etrus- 
cans " — were  to  be  found  in  Northern  and  part  of  Central  Italy. 

The  Italian  and  Sicilian  coasts  must  have  been  well  known  to 
the  Greeks  before  they  ventured  to  settle  on  them.  It  was  probably 
the  result  of  an  extensive  comparison  of  sites  that  the  Chalcidians 
planted  Cumae  on  the  most  favored  spot  of  Italy,  the  Bay  of  Naples. 
But  Cumse  long  remained  isolated  in  the  north ;  the  earliest  groups 
of  cities  were  established  not  on  the  Campanian  but  the  Oenotrian 
and  Sicilian  shores.  The  first  place  whose  foundation-date  has  come 
down  to  us  is  Naxos  in  Sicily,  a  city  set  between  the  slopes  of  Mount 
Aetna  and  the  sea.  Here  Theocles  of  Chalcis,  the  pioneer  of  all 
settlers  in  Sicily,  set  up  the  altar  of  "  Apollo  the  Guider  "  in  735  B.C. 
In  the  very  next  year,  Archias  of  Corinth,  an  aristocrat  exiled  for 
an  outrage  by  the  oligarchy  of  his  native  place,  discovered  a  splendid 
harbor  fifty  miles  south  of  Naxos,  and  laid  on  the  island  of  Ortygia 
the  foundations  of  the  great  Dorian  city  of  Syracuse.  Before  ten 
years  were  passed  the  space  between  Syracuse  and  Naxos  had  been 
filled  by  the  foundation  of  the  Chalcidian  towns  of  Catana  and  Leon- 
tini,  and  the  Megarian  settlement  of  Megara  Hyblaea.  Next  the 
best  harbor  of  the  Sicilian  Strait  was  occupied  by  Chalcidians  and 
Cumaeans,  and  became  the  port  of  Zancle,  better  known  in  later 
days  as  Messene. 

Meanwhile  another  group  of  colonies  in  Oenotria  was  arising. 


84  G  R  E  E  C  E 

735-580   B.C. 

Its  central  points  were  the  sister  cities  of  Sybaris  and  Croton,  both 
founded  by  Achaian  emigrants  from  the  north  of  Pelopennesus. 
We  know  nothing  of  the  causes  which  set  these  Achaians  wander- 
ing, nor  did  their  country,  either  before  or  after,  display  any  similar 
taste  for  colonization.  But  Sybaris  in  the  rich  lowlands  of  the 
Crathis,  and  Croton  on  the  breezy  Lacinian  promontory,  were 
alike  the  settling-places  of  strong  swarms  of  Achaians.  They  grew 
and  flourished,  reduced  to  vassalage  the  Oenotrian  tribes  of  the 
inland,  and  established  little  empires  which  stretched  right  across 
the  instep  of  Italy,  from  the  Ionian  to  the  Tyrrhenian  Sea.  Sybaris 
planted  on  the  western  waters  Laiis  and  Poseidonia  opposite  her 
own  position  on  the  eastern  sea;  Croton,  in  a  similar  way,  settled 
Terlna  and  Temesa. 

Of  the  other  colonies  of  Italy,  Tarentum  owed  its  origin  to  the 
sedition  of  the  Partheniae  at  Sparta,  as  we  have  already  had  to 
relate.  Locri,  called  Epizephyrii  to  distinguish  it  from  its  mother- 
country,  was  the  fruit  of  a  similar  discord  among  the  Locrians  of 
Central  Greece.  Rhegium,  the  town  which  faced  Zancle  across  the 
waters  of  the  Sicilian  Strait,  drew  the  bulk  of  its  population  from  the 
Messenian  exiles  who  fled  abroad  after  the  fall  of  Ithome  and  the 
death  of  Aristodemus.  All  three  were  large  and  flourishing  towns, 
but  Tarentum  so  far  exceeded  the  others  as  to  rival  Sybaris,  and 
became  after  her  fall  the  first  Greek  city  of  Italy.  Besides  the  places 
we  have  mentioned,  many  other  Greek  colonies  studded  the  Oeno- 
trian and  Calabrian  coasts,  so  that  the  whole  district  gradually  ac- 
quired the  name  of  "  Greater  Greece "  (7/  fxtydXrj  'EUd<^,  Magna 
Graecia). 

Meanwhile  the  Greek  colonies  in  Sicily  were  advancing  west- 
ward, both  on  the  northern  and  the  southern  coasts  of  the  island. 
Dorians  from  Rhodes  settled  Gela,  Dorians  from  Megara  Selinus, 
on  the  shore  which  fronts  towards  Africa ;  while  the  Chalcidians 
of  Zancle  established  Himera  on  the  central  point  of  the  coast  which 
looks  out  on  Italy.  Syracuse,  a  century  after  her  own  foundation, 
planted  Camarina  at  the  southern  angle  of  the  island,  and  Gela 
shortly  after  founded  Acragas  (Agrigentum),  which  ere  long 
eclipsed  its  mother-city,  and  became  the  second  place  in  Sicily.  By 
the  sixth  century  a  continuous  line  of  Greek  colonies  encircled  the 
island,  except  at  its  western  corner,  where  the  Carthaginian  strong- 
holds of  Lilybaeum  and  Drepanum  and  the  native  town  of  Segesta 
maintained   their   independence.     The   Sicels  of   Eastern  and   the 


COLONIZATION  85 

Circa  6C0   B.C. 

Sicanians  of  Western  Sicily  became  the  vassals  of  the  newcomers, 
just  as  their  Oenotrian  kinsmen  in  Italy  had  fallen  a  prey  to  the 
Sybarites  and  Crotoniates.  Syracuse  alone  ruled  over  several  Sicel 
tribes,  and  extended  her  influence  far  into  the  interior  of  the 
island.^ 

Both  the  Italiot  and  Siceliot^  Greeks  owed  the  wealth  which 
they  soon  accumulated  to  the  raw  produce  of  the  virgin  lands  they 
occupied,  rather  than  to  commercial  or  manufacturing  activity.  The 
corn  of  ]\Ietapontum,  the  wool  of  the  flocks  of  Sybaris.  the  timber 
and  pitch  of  Croton,  the  oil  of  Acragas,  the  horses  of  Syracuse, 
the  fisheries  of  Tarentum,  became  famous  throughout  the  Greek 
world  for  the  mighty  fortunes  that  they  bred — fortunes  so  large 
that  the  millionaires  of  the  West  surpassed  the  wildest  dreams  of 
the  plutocratic  oligarchs  of  the  mother-country,  Sybaris  for  ex- 
ample was,  at  the  height  of  her  career,  probably  the  largest  Greek 
city  in  the  world,  and  the  tasteless  luxury  of  her  wealthier  classes 
kept  the  inhabitants  of  the  older  lands  supplied  with  a  never-ending 
series  of  good  stories.  Miletus  was  the  only  town  to  the  East  that 
could  vie  in  size  or  prosperity  with  the  Western  colonies;  Argos 
and  Athens,  Thebes  and  Sicyon,  would  have  appeared  poverty- 
stricken  in  comparison  with  them. 

Two  groups  of  colonies  in  the  West  which  lay  outside  Italy 
and  Sicily  deserve  mention.  The  first  was  the  sole  creation  of  the 
Phocaeans  of  Ionia.  Instead  of  turning  their  main  attention  to 
their  own  seas,  these  enterprising  traders  sought  out  the  far  West. 
Braving  the  competition  of  the  Phoenician  and  the  Etruscan,  they 
felt  their  way  along  the  coast  of  Europe  even  to  the  Straits  of 
Gibraltar.  Their  trade  with  Tartessus,  the  port  of  Southern  Spain, 
and  with  the  Celts  who  dwelt  about  the  Rhone,  brought  them  great 
wealth.  About  the  year  600  B.C.  they  resolved  to  furnish  them- 
selves with  a  secure  halfway  house  to  Spain,  and  built  the  town  of 
Massilia  just  beyond  the  most  easterly  of  the  mouths  of  the  Rhone. 
After  many  struggles  with  the  natives,  the  place  was  firmly  estab- 
lished, and  became  the  center  of  a  number  of  smaller  factories  on 
coasts  of  Catalonia  and  Provence,  of  which  Emporiae  was  the  most 
important. 

2  Dates  of  the  Greek  colonies  of  Sicily  not  given  above :    Gela,  690  b.  c.  ; 
Himera,  648  B.  c;  Selinus,  628  b.  c;  Camarina,  599  a.  c;  Acragas,  580  b.  c. 

3  Note  the  distinction  between  Vra/^.o?  or  -iXi/lw^,    a  barbarian  native  of  Italy 
or  Sicily,  and  ^hahcuzTj^  and  2':z£A;c/j77J9,  a  Greek  colonist  settled  therein. 


86  GREECE 

703-684  B.C. 

The  second  line  of  colonies  which  deserves  record  was  as  purely 
the  creation  of  Corinth  as  those  of  Gaul  were  of  Phocaea.  Corinth 
had  occasionally  planted  colonies  both  in  the  Aegean  and  in  Sicily ; 
Potidaea  and  Syracuse  have  already  been  cited.  But  the  great 
field  of  her  energy  was  the  northwestern  coast  of  Greece,  and  the 
Illyrian  shore  opposite  Italy.  Here,  both  while  she  remained  an 
oligarchy  and  when  the  oligarchy  had  fallen  before  the  tyrant  Cyp- 
selus,  her  settlements  continued  to  increase.  At  Corcyra  the  earlier 
Eretrian  colony  was  swamped  by  the  incoming,  in  708  B.C.,  of  a 
swarm  of  Corinthians  under  the  exiled  oligarch  Chersicrates.  Along 
the  coast  of  Acarnania  a  line  of  fortified  ports  drove  the  natives  up 
into  the  hills.  These  towns — the  only  Greek  colonies  whose  site 
was  taken  by  force  from  another  Greek  tribe,  though  a  barbarous 
one — were  Sollium,  Alyzia,  Astacus,  and  Anactorium.  Leucas,  the 
island  off  the  coast,  was  also  taken  from  the  Acarnanians  and  re- 
ceived a  Corinthian  population.  Similarly,  the  southernmost  dis- 
trict of  Epirus  was  conquered  and  became  the  territory  of  Ambracia. 
Finally,  Corinth  and  Corcyra  joined  to  plant  further  north,  in  II- 
lyria,  the  towns  of  Apollonia  and  Epidamnus. 

While  her  Acarnanian  colonies  always  kept  up  a  close  alliance 
with  Corinth,  and  followed  her  political  leading,  Corcyra  from  the 
first  took  an  opposite  course.  Perhaps  the  Euboean  element  in  her 
population  succeeded  in  estranging  the  Corinthian  from  its  alle- 
giance. At  any  rate,  within  forty  years  of  her  foundation  Corcyra 
set  herself  up  as  a  rival  for  the  Illyrian  and  Italian  trade  of  Corinth, 
and  engaged  in  war  with  the  mother-city.  The  first  naval  battle 
known  to  Greek  historians  was  fought  between  Corinth  and  Cor- 
cyra in  664  B.C.  After  maintaining  her  independence  for  the  best 
part  of  a  century,  Corcyra  was  conquered  by  the  tyrant  Periander, 
but  after  his  death  she  shook  off  the  Corinthian  yoke  forever,  and 
remained  the  bitter  and  mischievous  enemy  of  the  older  city. 

Only  one  more  sphere  of  Greek  colonial  activity  remains  to  be 
mentioned — the  northern  coast  of  Africa.  The  legends  which  tell 
how  Libya  was  quite  unknown  as  late  as  the  seventh  century  are 
foolish  inventions,  for  the  Achaians  of  prehistoric  days  had  already 
met  the  Libyans  as  allies  in  an  attack  on  Egypt.  But  the  dread  of 
Phoenician  rivalry  kept  the  Greeks  from  settlement  till  about  the 
middle  of  the  seventh  century.  Then  the  Dorian  islanders  of  Thera 
in  the  Cyclades,  strengthened  by  Peloponnesian  exiles,  sailed  across 
to  the  land  opposite  Crete,  and  after  many  trials  and  privations. 


COLONIZATION  87 

Circa  650  B.C. 

succeeded  in  fulfilling  a  decree  of  the  Delphian  Apollo,  which  bade 
them  "  establish  a  city  in  Libya  rich  in  fleeces."  Cyrene  was  the 
fruit  of  their  expedition.  Here  the  emigrants  mixed  more  freely 
with  the  people  of  the  land  than  in  any  other  Greek  settlement. 
Aristoteles,  the  Theraean  leader,  was  taken  as  king  by  the  Libyans 
of  the  district,  and  received  the  royal  name  of  Battus.  His  family 
intermarried  with  the  natives,  and  his  comrades  followed  their 
example,  so  that  the  blood  of  the  whole  community  grew  to  be 
but  half  Hellenic.  Cyrene  became  the  mother-city  of  Barca  and 
Euesperides — towns  rather  more  to  the  west.  For  two  centuries 
she  continued  to  flourish  under  kings  who,  from  father  to  son, 
alternately  bore  the  native  name  of  Battus  and  the  Greek  name  of 
Arcesilaiis.  She  grew  rich  on  her  flocks  and  herds,  her  cornfields 
and  her  export  of  silphium,  a  medicinal  drug  found  in  no  other  part 
of  the  Hellenic  world. 

Egypt  had  been  known  to  the  Greeks  long  before  Greek  history 
begins.  Achaian  pirate  raids  on  the  Delta  we  have  already  men- 
tioned, and  their  echoes  are  heard  in  the  Homeric  poems.  But  trade 
with  Egypt  was  not  established  for  many  centuries.  The  Egyptians 
were  the  Japanese  of  the  ancient  world,  and  kept  their  kingdom 
absolutely  sealed  against  Western  merchants.  Only  the  Phoenicians 
were  allowed  to  trade  to  the  mouths  of  the  Nile.  It  was  not  till  the 
downfall  of  Egyptian  greatness,  when  the  empire  of  the  Pharaohs 
had  sunk  into  a  cluster  of  principalities  sometimes  subject  to  and 
sometimes  free  from  the  supremacy  of  the  kings  of  Aethiopia  and 
Assyria,  that  the  Milesians  ventured  to  approach  the  Delta  and 
open  a  precarious  trade  with  the  natives.  No  safe  traffic  was  pos- 
sible till  the  Pharaohs  of  the  twenty-sixth  dynasty  reunited  Egypt, 
and,  favored  by  the  decline  of  Assyria,  made  her  once  more  a 
strong  kingdom.  Psammetichus,  first  of  these  Saite  Pharaohs,  had 
raised  himself  to  empire  by  the  use  of  mercenaries  hired  from  among 
the  lonians  and  Carians.  He  retained  them  about  his  person,  and 
allowed  their  countrymen  free  access  to  a  mart  near  the  Canopic 
channel  of  the  Nile.  The  Milesians  and  other  traders  from  Greek 
Asia  flocked  in  crowds  to  the  new  emporium,  which  they  named 
Naucratis.  Ere  long  it  grew  into  a  flourishing  Hellenic  town,  and 
served  as  a  starting-point  for  numerous  explorers,  who  wandered 
over  Egypt,  and  brought  back  such  reports  of  her  immemorial  an- 
tiquity and  countless  monuments  as  completely  puzzled  the  Greeks, 
who  had  no  conception  of  any  history  that  ran  back  more  than  some 


88  GREECE 

Circa  650  B.C. 

five  or  six  hundred  years.  Indeed,  Egypt  so  impressed  the  Greek 
mind  that  it  imbibed  a  notion  that  everything  ancient  must  owe  its 
origin  to  that  country — a  behef  w^hich  caused  much  confusion  in 
the  historical  ideas  of  later  days. 

It  is  necessary  to  remember  that  a  Greek  colony  was  by  no 
means  similar  to  the  colonies  of  our  own  days.  The  Greek  emigrants 
formed  new  states  of  their  ov^'n,  which  owed  nothing  except  a  filial 
respect  and  certain  honorary  dues  to  the  mother-city.  Instances 
to  the  contrary  are  very  rare.  Corinth  alone  seems  to  have  retained 
some  authority  over  her  colonies ;  she  used  even  to  send  out  annual 
magistrates  to  Potidaea,  while  her  Acarnanian  settlements  were 
bound  to  her  by  a  strict  commercial  league.  But  in  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  cases  a  sentimental  tie  alone  connected  the  parent  state  with 
her  offspring.  The  political  development  of  the  colony  was  often 
on  very  different  lines  from  that  which  the  mother-country  would 
have  dictated ;  nor  was  this  unnatural,  for  it  was  the  classes  which 
were  discontented  at  home  that  set  out  to  find  new  abodes.  From 
this  fact,  too,  it  resulted  that  the  constitutions  of  the  colonies  were 
often  unstable;  there  were  no  old  traditions  to  keep  men  steady, 
while  the  population  was  often  composed  of  discordant  elements, 
and  always  contained  a  very  large  proportion  of  men  of  stirring 
and  adventurous  dispositions.  Hence  the  greatness  of  the  colonies 
was  brilliant  rather  than  solid,  and  their  power  was  liable  to  sudden 
changes  from  vigor  to  absolute  collapse.  Wealth  was  so  exclu- 
sively their  aim  that  the  rigid  political  discipline,  which  formed  the 
character  of  the  citizen  in  the  states  of  old  Greece,  was  allowed  to 
disappear.  Individual  interest  became  far  more  powerful  in  pro- 
portion to  patriotic  impulses  than  in  the  mother-country. 

We  have  already  mentioned  in  an  earlier  chapter  the  prominent 
part  taken  by  the  oracle  of  Delphi  in  colonization.  It  was  always 
customary  for  the  oekist,  or  official  leader  of  a  swarm  of  settlers, 
to  ask  for  guidance  from  Apollo,  the  god  of  ways,  as  to  the  best 
situation  for  the  town  he  intended  to  found.  Sometimes  the  answer 
given  was  vague,  but,  as  a  rule,  the  advice  of  Apollo  v/as  shrewd 
and  practical.  No  doubt  the  Delphic  priesthood  had  unrivaled  op- 
portunities for  acquiring  geographical  information  from  the 
countless  pilgrims  from  all  parts  with  whom  they  came  in  contact. 
Probably,  then,  the  would-be  settlers  were  merely  dealing  with  a 
well-trained  emigration  agency  where  they  thought  they  were 
consulting  an  infallible  prophet.     Yet  still  the  discrimination  which 


COLONIZATION  89 

Circa  650  B.C. 

the  oracle  showed  in  recommending  sites  for  colonization  was  so 
great  that  we  cannot  wonder  that  it  acquired  thereby  a  high  reputa- 
tion. Inspiration  was  in  this  case  only  the  perfection  of  penetration 
and  common  sense,  and  it  was  the  practical  wisdom  of  the  priest- 
hood which  won  them  a  position  of  importance  in  all  Hellenic  lands 
such  as  they  could  not  have  acquired  in  any  other  way. 


Chapter  X 

AGE   OF   THE   TYRANTS,    CIRCA   750-560   B.C. 

IN  the  seventh  and  sixth  centuries  before  Christ  nearly  all  the 
Hellenic  states  went  through  a  period  of  internal  disorder  and 
strife,  one  of  whose  symptoms  was  the  widespread  emigration 
which  has  been  described  in  the  last  chapter.  The  phenomena  of 
violent  change  and  revolution  are  found  no  less  in  the  colonial 
states  of  Asia  Minor  and  Sicily  than  in  the  older  cities  of  European 
Greece.  The  causes  were  not  quite  similar  in  the  colonies  and  their 
mother-countries,  but  the  symptoms  were  the  same.  Everywhere 
old  constitutional  forms  were  disappearing,  and  before  the  state 
could  attain  to  a  stable  form  of  government  several  g'enerations 
spent  themselves  in  sedition  and  civil  war.  In  most  cases  the  period 
of  disorder  culminated  in  the  establishment  of  a  "  Tyranny,"  that  is, 
in  the  seizure  of  power  by  an  unconstitutional  and  despotic  sov- 
ereign. 

The  name  "  Tyrant "  in  Greece  was  applied  solely  with  refer- 
ence to  the  way  in  which  a  ruler  gained  his  position,  not  the  way  in 
which  he  used  it.  It  does  not  imply  gross  personal  depravity  or 
political  misrule;  indeed,  many  of  the  "  tyrants  "  were  men  abound- 
ing in  good  qualities,  who  used  their  power  to  the  advantage  of  their 
country.  The  word  simply  implies  that  the  ruler  enjoyed  an  un- 
controlled despotic  power,  not  acquired  by  constitutional  means. 
In  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  a  king  who  did  away  with  all 
checks  on  his  personal  power,  and  ruled  autocratically,  became  a 
"  tyrant  " ;  and  thus  we  find  Pheidon  of  Argos  given  the  name, 
though  he  was  a  legitimate  monarch  of  the  old  stock  of  the  Hera- 
clidae.  So  also  a  dictator  chosen  by  the  people  in  time  of  stress,  and 
entrusted  with  absolute  power,  might  be  styled  "  tyrant,"  though  he 
owed  his  elevation  to  the  will  of  the  state  itself;  such  was  the  case 
with  Pittacus  of  Mitylene.  In  these  instances  it  was  the  abnormal 
method  in  which  the  power  was  acquired,  and  its  unlimited  extent, 
which  won  for  its  holder  his  unenviable  name.  But  in  the  majority 
of  cases  the  tyrant  was  one  who  had  no  rights,  either  by  hereditary 

90 


AGEOFTY  RANTS  91 

Circa  750-650  B.C. 

succession  or  by  election,  to  the  position  which  he  occupied.  Some- 
times he  was  a  mihtary  adventurer ;  sometimes  an  ambitious  aristo- 
crat; still  more  frequently  was  he  the  champion  and  leader  of  the 
proletariate  ground  down  by  an  oppressive  oligarchy.  But  what- 
ever was  the  origin  of  his  authority,  or  the  manner  in  which  he  used 
it,  the  name  clung  to  him  if  only  his  position  was  unconstitutional 
and  his  power  unchecked. 

A  certain  uniformity  can  be  traced  in  the  political  history  of 
most  Greek  states,  after  they  had  got  rid  of  their  old  patriarchal 
kings.  In  the  majority  of  cases  the  royal  power  passed  into  the 
hands  of  an  oligarchy  of  birth.  Sometimes  the  direct  line  of  the 
old  heroic  house  died  out;  and,  instead  of  choosing  one  of  their 
own  number  to  take  the  scepter,  the  princes  and  chiefs,  who  had 
formed  the  council  and  restricted  the  authority  of  the  late  king, 
divided  the  power  among  themselves,  and  transmitted  it  to  their 
heirs;  so  that  the  rights  and  privileges  formerly  possessed  by  the 
monarch  became  the  property  of  a  limited  number  of  great  families. 
In  other  cases  the  kingly  line  continued  to  exist,  but  its  head  was 
gradually  stripped  of  all  his  power  and  prerogatives  by  the  great 
families,  and  became  a  mere  puppet  in  the  hands  of  the  oligarchy, 
only  useful  as  officially  representing  the  people  in  religious  cere- 
monies or  state  pageants.  "  Kings  "  of  this  kind,  who  were  little 
better  than  priests  or  public  pensioners,  existed  in  some  cases  down 
to  the  fifth  century. 

The  close  oligarchic  rings  of  noble  families,  among  whom  the 
royal  power  came  to  be  divided,  seldom  succeeded  in  maintaining 
themselves  for  many  generations.  Their  government  was  usually 
oppressive  and  ill-managed,  and  their  feuds  with  each  other  never- 
ending.  They  could  never  gain  for  themselves  the  respect  and  rev- 
erence which  had  appertained  to  the  old  patriarchal  kings.  The 
monarchy  had  in  its  favor  its  immemorial  antiquity;  when  it  was 
replaced  by  oligarchy,  the  new  government  had  no  traditions  on 
which  to  rely,  and  stood  or  fell  on  its  own  merits.  These  were 
usually  small  enough,  and,  for  the  bulk  of  the  citizens,  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  royal  house  was  an  unmitigated  misfortune.  The  great 
families  are,  in  the  traditions  of  every  state,  accused  of  overweening 
arrogance,  open  maladministration  of  justice,  and  lawless  violence 
in  dealing  with  their  inferiors.  The  old  kings  had  every  inter- 
est in  holding  the  balance  straight  between  the  various  classes  of 
their  subjects;  their  successors,  on  the  other  hand,  ruled  entirely 


92  GREECE 

750-630    B.C. 

for  the  advantage  of  a  small  section  of  the  population,  and  showed 
the  most  cynical  disregard  for  the  rights  of  the  remainder.  The 
oppressive  character  of  their  rule  was,  of  course,  even  more  marked 
than  usual  in  those  cities  where  the  ruling  classes  were  different  in 
blood  from  the  main  body  of  the  people ;  such,  for  example,  as  those 
states  of  Northern  Peloponnesus  in  which  a  Dorian  aristocracy 
domineered  over  an  Achaian  or  Ionian  populace.  But  even  where 
a  race-hatred  did  not  embitter  the  situation,  the  relations  between 
the  rulers  and  the  ruled  were  always  unsatisfactory. 

A  fair  example  of  the  history  of  a  Greek  state  in  its  progress 
from  kingship  to  tyranny  through  oligarchy  and  civil  strife  is  pre- 
sented by  Corinth.  That  city  had,  like  so  many  of  the  Peloponnesian 
states,  been  conquered  by  a  band  of  Dorians,  who  did  not  expel  the 
former  Aeolic  inhabitants,  but  merely  reduced  them  to  a  state  of 
inferiority.  The  descendants  of  King  Aletes,  the  Heracleid  prince 
who  had  led  the  invaders,  held  the  throne  for  some  centuries ;  but 
about  the  year  750  b.c.  the  reigning  sovereign  was  deposed  by  an 
oligarchic  conspiracy.  Two  hundred  Dorian  families,  all  of  whom 
claimed  a  descent  from  Bacchis — one  of  the  earlier  kings  of  the 
house  of  Aletes — seized  and  kept  possession  of  the  government  of 
the  state.  They  continued  to  hold  the  reins  of  power  for  about 
ninety  years — a  period  of  perpetual  strife  and  unrest.  Body  after 
body  of  the  Corinthians  sought  refuge  from  the  misgovernment  of 
the  Bacchiadae  by  departing  to  found  distant  colonies.  Corcyra 
and  Syracuse,  for  example,  each  owed  its  origin  to  an  emigration 
led  by  a  prominent  citizen  who  had  quarreled  with  the  oligarchs. 
The  state  was  fast  lapsing  into  anarchy  when  a  final  explosion  of 
popular  wrath  broke  the  power  of  the  oppressive  caste.  It  was  led 
by  one  Cypselus,  a  Bacchiad  on  his  mother's  side,  though  his  father, 
Eetion,  was  one  of  the  unprivileged  multitude.  His  mixed  de- 
scent of  course  excluded  him  from  political  life,  but  he  had  enough 
of  the  blood  of  the  Bacchiadae  in  his  veins  to  make  him  resent  his 
disability.  Accordingly  he  took  advantage  of  the  seething  discon- 
tent of  the  city  to  place  himself  at  the  head  of  the  populace  and  over- 
throw the  Bacchiadae  by  force.  For  thirty  years  he  reigned  as 
"  tyrant "  of  Corinth,  basing  his  power  on  his  popularity  with  the 
multitude,  and  not  even  keeping  an  armed  force  at  his  back  to 
guard  against  revolts,  so  firm  was  his  position.  Against  the  remains 
of  the  oligarchy  he  was  stern  and  relentless,  slaying  some,  banishing 
many,  and  heavily  taxing  all.     But  with  the  bulk  of  the  people  the 


AGEOFTYRANTS  93 

625-580    B.C. 

relief  of  being  delivered  from  anarchy  made  him  not  unpopular, 
his  autocratic  government  being  far  better  than  no  government  at 
all.  If  the  contributions  which  he  levied  from  the  state  were  large, 
the  use  which  he  made  of  them — especially  the  magnificent  offerings 
which  he  presented  to  the  Delphian  Apollo — was  not  much  to  be 
blamed ;  and  the  splendor  of  his  court  reflected  glory  on  the  city. 
Cypselus  died  on  the  throne,  and  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Perian- 
der,  who  developed  all  the  evil  sides  of  his  father's  character,  but 
otherwise  only  resembled  him  in  the  masterful  activity  of  his  nature. 
Born  in  the  purple,  and  remembering  nothing  of  the  popular  origin 
of  his  father's  power,  he  showed  himself  a  hard  master  to  the  Corin- 
thians. He  built  himself  a  fortress-palace  on  the  Acropolis,  and 
surrounded  himself  with  a  body  of  foreign  mercenaries,  for  whose 
support  he  levied  vast  sums  from  the  citizens.  But  his  interference 
with  the  private  life  of  his  subjects  was  the  worst  point  of  his  rule. 
He  set  himself  to  isolate  man  from  man  by  breaking  up  all  oppor- 
tunities for  intercourse.  He  closed  the  Gymnasium  to  prevent  the 
young  men  from  meeting,  and  prohibited  the  public  banquets  which 
Dorian  custom  had  made  one  of  the  most  prominent  features  of  city 
life.  His  spies  were  always  abroad,  seeking  to  discover  the  elements 
of  possible  combinations  against  him ;  and  when  any  citizen  made 
himself  too  prominent  in  wealth  or  popularity,  he  was  driven  into 
exile  or  slain  without  trial  by  the  tyrant.  A  legend  told  how  Peri- 
ander  had  learned  this  policy  from  a  brother-despot,  Thrasybiilus 
of  Miletus.  Soon  after  his  accession,  it  was  said,  he  sent  to  ask 
the  advice  of  the  Milesian  as  to  the  best  way  to  conduct  his  govern- 
ment. Thrasybiilus  sent  no  verbal  answer,  but  led  the  Corinthian 
messenger  to  a  patch  of  corn,  and  then  walked  around  it,  cutting 
down  with  his  staff  any  ears  that  stood  above  the  rest  of  the  crop. 
His  action  was  duly  reported  to  Periander,  who  took  the  hint  to 
heart,  and  carried  it  out  by  relentlessly  destroying  any  man  whose 
property  or  personal  influence  raised  him  above  his  fellows,  and 
made  him  a  possible  leader  of  revolt.  These  murders,  and  the  occa- 
sional freaks  or  spiteful  insult  towards  the  whole  body  of  citizens  in 
which  he  indulged  made  Periander  the  best-hated  man  in  Greece. 
His  private  life  was  miserable ;  he  was  the  author  of  his  wife's  death, 
and  lived  at  enmity  with  his  only  surviving  son,  who  died  before 
him,  so  that  the  tyranny  passed  at  his  death  to  a  nephew.  Yet 
the  lavish  magnificence  of  his  court,  the  crowd  of  poets  and  artists 
whom  he  maintained,  his  firm  hand  and  subtle  policy,  won  him  a 


94  GREECE 

660-560  B.C. 

great  name  among  the  sovereigns  of  his  time.  The  curt  sayings 
which  embodied  his  views  of  hfe  even  caused  him  to  be  reckoned 
among  the  *'  Seven  Sages  "  of  Greece.  He  conquered  Epidaurus 
and  Aegina,  recovered  Corcyra,  and  reigned  for  forty  years  in  un- 
broken power.  But  the  main  result  of  his  Hfe  had  been  to  make 
tyranny  impossible  for  the  future  at  Corinth.  Periander's  arbitrary 
violence,  his  oppressive  taxation,  and  still  more  his  insulting  con- 
tempt for  his  subjects,  were  remembered  for  centuries,  and  made 
the  Corinthians  steady  enemies  of  tyrants  forever.  His  nephew  and 
successor,  Psammetichus,  hardly  held  the  scepter  for  a  year,  and 
fell  by  the  daggers  of  conspirators  at  the  moment  that  he  was  at- 
tacked by  the  Spartans,  who  were  received  as  liberators,  and  won 
the  eternal  gratitude  and  alliance  of  Corinth  by  doing  away  with 
the  last  traces  of  the  rule  of  the  Cypselidae. 

The  story  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  this  house  of  tyrants  is  emi- 
nently typical  of  the  time ;  all  over  Greece  similar  events  were  taking 
place.  In  town  after  town  a  popular  leader  delivered  the  people 
from  an  oppressive  oligarchy,  made  himself  sole  ruler,  and  left 
power  to  descendants  who  abused  it,  and  ere  long  were  driven  from 
their  thrones  by  the  same  force  v/hich  had  created  them.  In  many 
cases  the  tyrants  lost  their  authority  in  the  second  generation;  in 
a  few  a  single  life  sufficed  to  show  all  the  vicissitudes  of  rise,  pros- 
perity, and  fall.  Sicyon  was  the  only  town  where  the  tyranny  lasted 
for  more  than  a  century,  and  where  the  scepter  was  handed  from 
father  to  son  for  four  generations.  But  at  Sicyon  the  circumstances 
were  peculiarly  favorable  to  the  tyrants.  The  house  of  Orthagoras 
(660-560  B.C.)  represented  a  national  rising  of  lonians  against  Do- 
rians, and  moreover  its  members  were  men  of  moderation  as  well 
as  of  ability,  and  committed  none  of  the  atrocities  which  disgraced 
the  tyrants  of  most  cities.  Yet  even  they  fell  at  last,  and  left  no 
adherents  behind  them.  At  Megara  the  history  of  the  one  tyrant 
Theagenes  sums  up  all  the  changes  which  took  three  generations  at 
Corinth  and  four  at  Sicyon  to  work  themselves  out.  At  Athens  the 
Peisistratidae  ruled  for  two  generations ;  at  Syracuse  the  three  sons 
of  Deinomenes  occupied  only  twenty  years.  At  no  place  was  any- 
thing approaching  to  a  permanent  dynasty  founded. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  democratic  leaders  were  the  only 
men  who  ever  aspired  to  tyranny.  Phalaris  of  Agrigentum,  perhaps 
the  most  cruel  of  all  his  class,  was  an  oligarch,  who  had  taken 
advantage  of  his  tenure  of  office  as  magistrate,  and  seized  the  su- 


AGEOFTYRANTS  95 

660-560   B.C. 

preme  power.  Aristodemus  of  Cumae  was  a  successful  general, 
who  had  saved  his  state  from  an  Etruscan  invasion.  Pheidon  of 
Argos,  as  we  have  already  mentioned,  was  an  hereditary  king,  who 
cast  off  the  limits  of  constitutional  authority,  and  made  himself 
absolute.  Still,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  tyranny  was  the  way  from 
oligarchy  to  democracy,  the  inevitable  penalty  which  a  state  had  to 
pay  for  ridding  itself  from  the  evils  of  government  by  the  great 
families.  Considered  in  this  light,  the  tyranny  was  not  an  unmiti- 
gated evil.  It  crushed  the  pride  and  ended  the  reckless  feuds  of  the 
oligarchs,  and  taught  them  to  live  with  their  fellow-citizens  as  equals 
even  though  the  equality  only  consisted  in  servitude  to  the  same 
tyrant.  A  state  which  had  once  gone  through  the  stage  of  tyranny 
never  fell  back  again  into  the  worse  forms  of  family  oligarchy. 

If  we  proceed  to  inquire  into  the  internal  administration  of  the 
tyrants,  we  find  that  their  government  had  many  favorable  points. 
It  was  the  stock  complaint  of  the  dispossessed  oligarchy  that  the 
tyrant  was  a  lavish  spender  of  money ;  but  the  objects  on  which  the 
money  was  laid  out  were  usually  great  public  works  of  high  advan- 
tage to  the  state.  The  real  key  to  the  despot's  financial  policy  was 
that  he  strove  to  keep  the  poorer  classes  quiet  by  finding  them  em- 
ployment on  works  for  which  the  price  was  paid  by  the  rich — a 
scheme  not  unknown  to  statesmen  of  our  own  day.  It  may  be 
noticed  that  the  tyrants  were  the  first  to  lend  public  patronage  to 
art  and  letters,  and  that  their  reigns  were  everywhere  a  period  of 
rapid  intellectual  development. 

Abroad  they  distinguished  themselves  by  the  close  relations 
with  foreign  powers  into  which  they  entered.  Periander  was  the 
close  ally  of  the  King  of  Lydia ;  and  his  successor's  Egyptian  name^ 
seems  to  point  to  an  equally  intimate  connection  and  alliance  with 
the  Saite  Pharaohs.  Polycrates  of  Samos  was  bound  by  an  offen- 
sive and  defensive  alliance  with  Amasis  of  Egypt.  Miltiades  of  the 
Thracian  Chersonese  married  into  the  royal  house  of  the  neighbor- 
ing barbarian  tribe.  Peisistratus  "  strengthened  him.self  by  men  and 
money  drawn  from  the  lands  by  the  Strymon,"  that  is,  by  Thracian 
mercenaries  and  gold.  The  tyrants,  in  short,  taught  their  subjects 
to  enter  into  more  friendly  relationship  with  "  the  barbarian  "  than 
had  formerly  been  esteemed  possible.  The  main  result  of  this  con- 
nection was  an  immediate  increase  in  the  facilities  for  the  expansion 
of  commerce. 

^  Psammetichus. 


96  GREECE 

660  B.C. 

All  the  accounts  of  the  tyrants  which  have  come  down  to  us  are 
colored  by  the  hatred  which  the  dispossessed  oligarchies  bore  them. 
The  tales  of  their  enormities  should  therefore  be  received  with  the 
greatest  caution.  There  is  no  doubt  that  they  numbered  many 
cruel  and  unscrupulous  men  among  them;  but  when  we  remember 
the  evils  from  which  they  delivered  the  mass  of  their  countrymen, 
it  does  not  seem  too  much  to  say  that  a  perpetual  freedom  from  the 
worse  horrors  of  oligarchy  was  cheaply  bought  at  the  price  of  forty 
or  fifty  years  of  rule  by  a  tyrant. 


Chapter  XI 

EARLY   HISTORY   OF   ATTICA,   CIRCA  1068-621    B.C. 

THE  greatness  of  Athens  in  historical  times  has  produced  an 
impression  that  in  early  days  also  she  must  have  been  a 
considerable  state.  In  real  fact,  however,  the  reverse  would 
seem  to  have  been  the  case ;  down  to  the  sixth  century  Athens  was  a 
city  of  very  second-rate  importance,  and  her  history  was  obscure 
and  uninteresting.  It  has  only  been  rescued  from  oblivion  because 
the  brilliancy  of  her  after-career  led  men  to  trace  back  as  far  as  pos- 
sible the  origins  of  her  success. 

That  Attica  was,  at  the  epoch  of  the  Boeotian  and  Dorian  mi- 
grations, flooded  by  fugitives  both  from  the  north  and  the  Pelo- 
ponnesus, we  have  already  related.  But  the  bulk  of  the  refugees 
passed  on  to  Asia,  and  built  up  the  cities  of  Ionia.  When  the  emi- 
grants had  departed,  Attica  relapsed  into  her  previous  obscurity; 
the  only  trace  of  the  stirring  times  of  the  Ionic  migration  which 
remained  was  the  fact  that  many  of  the  great  Athenian  families  of 
later  days  drew  their  origin  from  one  or  other  of  the  exiled  races 
that  had  sojourned  in  the  land.  It  is  not  impossible  that  the  full 
Hellenization  of  the  "  Pelasgic  "  tribes  of  Attica  runs  no  further 
back  than  the  time  of  the  migrations,  and  that  the  legend  which  told 
how  the  Athenian  kings  "  received  Ion  into  their  family  "  merely 
means  that  the  influx  of  lonians  from  Peloponnesus  absorbed  the 
Atticans  into  the  Hellenic  nationality. 

When  the  swarms  of  emigrants  cleared  off,  and  Athens  is 
again  discernible,  the  crown  had  passed  from  the  old  royal  house  of 
the  Cecropidae  to  a  family  of  exiles  from  Peloponnesus.  Melan- 
thus,  a  Caucon  from  Pylos,  had  fought  in  single  combat — so  legend 
tells — with  Xanthus,  the  King  of  the  Boeotians,  when  Attica 
was  invaded  from  the  north,  and  slain  his  enemy.  Thymoetas,  the 
aged  and  childless  King  of  Athens,  made  the  champion  heir  to  his 
throne,  as  a  mark  of  the  gratitude  of  the  nation.  A  generation  later 
the  Dorian  invasion,  which  had  overwhelmed  Corinth  and  torn  away 
Megara  from  the  Attic  dominion,  swept  up  to  the  very  gates  of 

97 


98  GREECE 

Circa   1068-650   B.C. 

Athens.  An  oracle  declared  that  the  city  would  never  fall  if  its 
ruler  perished  by  the  hand  of  the  invaders ;  therefore  King  Codrus 
disguised  himself  as  a  peasant,  set  out  for  the  Dorian  camp,  struck 
down  the  first  man  he  met,  and  was  himself  slain  by  the  second. 
The  invasion  failed,  and  the  Athenians  reverenced  ever  after  the 
memory  of  their  patriot  king  with  peculiar  veneration.  But  his  son 
and  successor,  Medon,  did  not  succeed  to  the  full  powers  of  his 
father.  Henceforth  the  royal  authority  was  limited  by  the  creation 
of  two  new  officers,  the  Archon  and  the  Polemarch,  one  of  whom 
took  over  much  of  the  king's  civil  authority,  while  the  other  acted 
as  commander-in-chief. 

For  twelve  generations  the  Codridae  retained  the  titular  king- 
ship for  life ;  but  in  752  B.C.,  as  we  are  told,  this  tenure  Vv^as  abol- 
ished, and  the  Archon  was  made  official  head  of  the  state;  the  king 
— now  elected  every  ten  years  from  among  the  members  of  the 
royal  house — and  the  Polemarch  took  rank  after  him. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  we  find  that  in  the  eighth  century  Attica 
had  drifted  into  the  same  stage  of  constitutional  development  as  the 
majority  of  other  Greek  states.  The  supreme  magistracies  were  at 
first  confined  to  those  families  only  which  claimed  to  descend  from 
Codrus;  but  about  710  b.c.  these  houses  had  to  take  into  partner- 
ship all  the  Attic  nobility,  and  the  three  gTcat  offices  were  opened 
to  every  member  of  the  class  of  "  Eupatridae."  When,  thirty 
years  later,  six  junior  archons  were  added,  and  the  board  of  nine 
colleagues  began  to  be  elected  annually,  the  Athenian  constitution 
assumed  the  characteristics  of  the  ordinary  oligarchy. 

Oligarchy  at  Athens  showed  all  the  features  which  marked  its 
rule  elsewhere.  Misgovernment  was  universal,  the  administration 
of  justice  fell  into  contempt,  the  non-noble  freeman  was  excluded 
from  all  share  in  the  administration  of  the  state,  and  w^as  continually 
exposed  to  the  lawlessness  and  insolence  of  the  more  reckless 
members  of  the  governing  caste. 

When  Attic  history  becomes  clear  and  continuous,  somewhere 
about  the  middle  of  the  seventh  century,  we  find  the  government 
composed  of  the  nine  officers,  all  now  called  ''  archons,"  and  of  a 
council  called  the  "  Areopagus,"  from  the  place  ("Apeu)?  ~dyo^-^  the 
Hill  of  Ares)  at  which  it  met.  This  council  was  exclusively 
Eupatrid  in  its  composition,  and  included  all  ex-archons.  It  chose, 
and  exercised  constant  control  over,  the  annual  archons — for  an 
oligarchy  never  trusts  its  magistrates — and  was  also  the  supreme 


EARLY   ATTICA  99 

650-625    B.C. 

judicial  court  for  homicide.^  Of  the  board  of  archons,  the  chief, 
now  called  Archon  Eponymus  {J'Apyu),!  iKwyutio'?) ,  gave  his  name  to 
the  year,  and  exercised  an  honorary  presidency  in  the  state;  the 
second,  or  King-Archon,  {BaaXtixs),  discharged  the  ancient  func- 
tions of  the  monarch  as  religious  head  and  representative  of  the 
state ;  the  third,  or  Polemarch,  was  minister  of  war  and  commander- 
in-chief;  the  remaining  six  junior  archons  were  called  Thesmo- 
thetae,  and  were  charged  with  the  administration  of  the  different 
branches  of  justice, — everything  but  homicide  was  within  their 
competence. 

Below  the  Eupatridae  lay  the  bulk  of  the  population,  divided 
from  very  early  times  into  Geomori  and  Demiurgi,  or  husband- 
men and  artisans — a  rough  distinction,  which  had  come  to  have  little 
meaning  in  later  days.  The  real  division  by  the  seventh  century 
had  come  to  be  local,  and  everything  turned  on  the  feelings  of  the 
parties  known  as  Pedias,  Diacria,  and  Paralia — the  Plain,  the  Up- 
land, and  the  Shore.  The  men  of  the  Plain  were  the  rich  Eupatrid 
landowners  who  occupied  the  lowlands  of  the  two  fertile  tracts  of 
Attica,  the  Thriasian  and  Athenian  Plains.  The  "  Shore,"  the 
coast-slip  of  Western  Attica,  was  the  dwelling  of  a  population  sup- 
ported partly  by  fishing  and  partly  by  commerce,  who  formed  a 
class  intermediate  between  the  aristocratic  landowners  and  the  Dia- 
crians  of  Northern  and  Eastern  Attica.  These  Uplanders  occu- 
pied the  arid  hills  of  the  interior;  they  were  mostly  shepherds  and 
herdsmen,  and  formed  the  rudest  and  poorest  class  in  the 
countr>^2 

The  first  recorded  outbreak  of  troubles  in  Attica  belongs  to  the 
third  quarter  of  the  seventh  century. 

Cylon  was  a  noble  of  great  wealth  and  distinction.  He  had 
been  a  victor  at  the  Olympic  games,  and  boasted  of  a  numerous 
troop  of  friends  and  dependents.  Moreover,  he  had  married  the 
daughter  of  Theagenes,  tyrant  of  Megara,  and  had  the  career  of 
his  father-in-law  constantly  before  his  eyes.  Counting  on  the  weak- 
ness of  the  oligarchic  government,  and  the  universality  of  public 
discontent  with  it,  Cylon  determined  on  a  bold  attempt  to  make 

1  It  has  been  much  debated  whether  the  Areopagus  represented  the  primitive 
council  of  chiefs ;  probably  it  did. 

2  Those  who  wish  to  study  the  dry  and  obscure  question  of  the  exact  meaning 
of  the  Naucraries,  Trittyes,  Phratrys,  and  other  primitive  Attic  divisions  of  the 
people,  are  referred  to  purely  constitutional  histories. 


100  GREECE 

625-621   B.C. 

himself  tyrant  of  Athens.  On  a  concerted  day  his  friends  were 
joined  by  a  band  of  mercenaries  from  Megara,  and  seized  the 
AcropoHs.  But  he  had  not  troubled  himself  to  insure  the  good  will 
of  the  populace,  and  the  majority  looked  on  while  he  and  his  fac- 
tion were  blockaded  in  the  citadel  by  all  the  forces  that  the  govern- 
ment could  muster.  The  chief  conspirator  escaped  by  night,  but 
his  followers  were  ere  long  starved  out.  They  sat  down  as  sup- 
pliants at  the  altar  of  Athena,  and  threw  open  the  gates  to  the 
besiegers.  Megacles,  the  archon  in  command,  induced  them  to  quit 
their  sanctuary  by  a  promise  that  their  lives  should  be  spared;  but 
the  moment  that  they  had  left  the  Acropolis  he  caused  them  to  be 
put  to  death.  Hence  a  deep  stain  of  sacrilege  and  perjury  was  held 
to  attach  to  Megacles  and  his  descendants,  the  house  of  the  Alo- 
maeonidae.  Again  and  again  in  later  times  the  cry  was  raised 
that  the  "  family  under  the  curse "  ought  to  be  expelled  from 
Athens. 

After  Cylon's  failure  the  struggle  between  the  oligarchy  of 
Eupatridae  and  the  nation  that  it  oppressed  grew  yet  more  bitter. 
Two  main  sources  of  trouble  existed :  the  people,  like  the  Roman 
plebeians  of  the  following  century,  were  in  a  chronic  state  of 
poverty  and  distress,  owing  to  misgovernment  as  much  as  to  bad 
seasons ;  moreover,  they  were  driven  to  despair  by  the  arbitrary 
and  unequal  incidence  of  punishments.  No  one  could  ever  foresee 
the  end  of  a  suit,  for  the  archons  varied  the  judgments  at  pleasure. 
Hence  there  was  a  universal  cry  for  the  publication  of  laws 
which  should  fix  some  proportion  between  the  offenses  and  the 
penalty. 

The  demand  of  the  citizens  was  at  last  met  by  the  nobles  con- 
senting to  give  way,  and  the  Archon  Draco  in  621  B.C.  published 
a  written  code  of  laws.  An  Athenian  of  a  later  day  exclaimed  that 
"  the  laws  of  Draco  seemed  to  have  been  written  with  blood  rather 
than  with  ink."  It  is  highly  probable  that  the  aristocracy  chose  to 
leave  themselves  a  power  of  applying  very  severe  punishments,  and 
stated  the  penalty  of  each  offense  at  its  possible  maximum;  but  we 
need  not  believe  the  legends  which  assert  that  Draco  affixed  the 
punishment  of  death  to  almost  every  crime.  The  one  fragment, 
indeed,  of  his  legislation  which  has  come  down  to  us  deals  with  a 
mitigation  of  the  law  of  murder,  and  provides  that  involuntary 
homicides  should  not  be  treated  as  outlaws  liable  to  be  slain  by 
everyone  who  met  them,  but  be  placed  under  the  protection  of  the 


E  A  R  L  Y     A  T  T  I  C  A  101 

621    B.C. 

state  till  they  could  make  compensation  to  the  family  of  the  slain 
man.^ 

Whatever  was  the  exact  bearing  of  the  legislation  of  Draco,  it 
proved  a  very  inadequate  palliative  for  the  evils  which  were 
troubling  the  state.  Within  a  few  years  of  its  promulgation  mat- 
ters were  as  bad  as  ever.  The  details  given  in  the  noXireta  twv 
Adrj'miojv'^  about  some  alleged  political  reforms  of  Draco,  over 
and  above  his  laws,  seem  untrustworthy. 

"  If  a  homicide  kept  away  from  markets  and  games  and  festivals,  and  yet  was 
sought  out  and  slain  by  the  kinsmen  of  his  victim,  the  men  who  slew  him  were 
to  be  held  themselves  guilty  of  murder. 

^  This  work  of  Aristotle's  was  composed  near  the  end  of  his  life,  but 
disappeared  altogether  somewhere  between  the  sixth  and  ninth  century,  a.  d. 
Nothing  was  known  of  it  thereafter  beyond  fragments  quoted  by  different 
writers,  until  1890,  when  it  was  recovered  almost  entire  in  a  Greek  manuscript 
discovered  in  Egypt  which  found  its  way  to  the  British  Museum  and  was  there 
deciphered  and  recognized.  The  first  edition  of  this  manuscript  was  published 
in  1891.  It  is  unknown  who  discovered  the  original  manuscript,  but  it  was 
probably  some  native  in  Egypt  who  sold  it  to  a  traveler  and  in  this  way,  in 
course  of  time,  it  came  to  the  British  Museum. 


Chapter    XII 

SOLON  AND    PEISISTRATUS.    CIRCA   600-510  B.C. 

A  FEW  years  after  the  legislation  of  Draco  we  find  Athens 
engaged  in  a  long  and  doubtful  war  with  Megara.  The  civil 
.  discords,  which  the  new  laws  had  proved  quite  insufficient 
to  allay,  were  aggravated  by  the  miseries  of  a  disastrous  and  ill-con- 
ducted v/ar.  The  weakness  of  the  Athenian  oligarchy  is  shown 
plainly  enough  by  the  fact  that  they  were  quite  unable  to  cope  with 
the  smaller  states  in  the  west.  Even  Salamis,  the  island  which  lies 
in  full  view  of  Athens,  and  is  divided  by  less  than  a  mile  of  water 
from  the  Attic  shore,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Megarians;  for 
yUhens  had  as  yet  no  ships  to  put  in  line  against  the  flourishing  navy 
which  had  planted  the  many  colonies  of  Megara. 

It  was  during  a  critical  period  of  the  Megarian  war  that  the 
name  of  Solon  is  first  heard.  He  was  a  Eupatrid  by  birth,  a  man 
of  high  personal  integrity  and  attractive  character,  who  had  won 
from  the  people  a  respect  which  they  paid  to  few  of  his  caste.  He 
was  a  practiced  orator  and  a  poet :  his  stirring  verses  played  at 
Athens  the  same  part  that  the  war-songs  of  Tyrtaeus  had  played  at 
Sparta,  and  induced  his  desponding  fellow-citizens  to  persevere  in 
an  apparently  hopeless  contest.  "  Rather  would  I  be,"  he  sang, 
"  a  man  of  Pholegandros  or  Sicinos  ^  than  an  Athenian,  if  I  am  to  be 
]3ointed  at  as  one  of  those  who  abandoned  Salamis  to  the  enemy." 
The  sarcasm  told,  and  the  war  was  continued.  Solon  himself  was 
put  at  the  head  of  an  expedition  which  ran  the  blockade  of  the  Sala- 
minian  Strait,  hastily  landed  on  the  island,  and  succeeded  in  driving- 
out  the  Megarian  garrison.  He  even  carried  the  Athenian  arms  up 
to  the  very  gates  of  the  hostile  city,  and  seized  for  a  moment  its 
harbor  of  Xisaea.  The  war  had  still  many  vicissitudes,  and  Athens 
was  ere  long  reduced  to  the  defensive  again ;  but  her  citizens  never 
forgot  the  exploits  of  the  soldier-poet,  and  continued  to  regard  him 
as  the  one  possible  savior  of  the  community.  Probably  he  might 
have  become  tyrant  of  Attica  had  he  wished,  but  he  was  a  loyal 
servant  of  the  state,  and  had  no  personal  ambition. 

^  Obscure  islands  in  the  Cyclades. 
102 


SOLON 

(Born    circa     638    h.  r.      Died    circa     559    :i.  c.) 

Bust    in    the   Xdlwnal    Miiscuiii,    .WiHrs 


SOLON    AND    PEISISTRATUS  103 

595-594  B.  C. 

After  some  years  the  war  with  Megara  was  ended  by  the  arbi- 
tration of  Sparta,  and  Athens  retained  permanent  possession  of 
Salamis.  We  need  not  attach  any  importance  to  the  legend  which 
states  that  Solon  influenced  the  Lacedaemonians  in  favor  of  Athens 
by  quoting  to  them  a  line  which  he  interpolated  in  the  Iliad,  to  the 
effect  that  Ajax  of  Salamis  ranged  his  ships  on  the  Trojan  beach 
beside  those  of  Athens.  The  argument  would  have  been  worthless, 
and  Solon  was  not  a  forger.  A  little  later  Solon  acquired  favorable 
notice  throughout  Greece  for  the  prominent  part  which  he  took  in 
behalf  of  the  Delphic  oracle  against  its  oppressors.  The  Phocians 
of  Crissa  and  Cirrha  had  been  molesting  the  pilgrims  who  came  to 
make  inquiry  of  Apollo.  Solon  took  up  the  cause  of  the  injured, 
preached  a  crusade  against  the  wrong-doers,  and,  in  conjunction 
with  Cleisthenes,  tyrant  of  Sicyon,  succeeded  in  subduing  the  guilty 
towns,  which  received  destruction  as  the  reward  of  their  sacrilege. 
About  595  B.C.  the  internal  troubles  of  Athens,  which  had  been 
growing  worse  since  the  time  of  Cylon's  conspiracy,  came  to  a 
head.  The  particular  grievance  which  brought  matters  to  a  crisis 
was  the  question  of  the  law  of  debt.  A  series  of  years  of  war  and 
bad  harvests  had  brought  down  to  a  condition  of  abject  misery  the 
poorer  agricultural  class  in  Attica,  who  cultivated  the  farms  of  the 
Eupatridae  as  servile  tenant-farmers,  paying  to  the  landowner  a 
rent  of  one-sixth  of  their  produce,  a  tenure  which  won  them  the 
name  of  'Ey.-riix6poi,  These  unfortunate  "  villeins,"  as  they  would 
have  been  called  in  mediaeval  Europe,  were  deeply  sunk  in  arrears 
of  debt  to  their  landlords,  and  by  the  legislation  of  Draco  were  liable 
to  be  sold  as  slaves  if  they  failed  in  due  payment,  for  the  creditor's 
only  security  was  the  bodies  of  his  debtor  and  his  wife  and  children. 
Attica  was  threatened  with  the  total  extinction  of  her  poorer  classes ; 
the  Megarian  war  seems  to  have  rendered  the  situation  desperate, 
and  every  day  the  bankrupt  debtor  might  be  seen  dragged  off  in 
chains  to  be  exposed  in  the  slave-markets  of  Lydia  or  Egypt. 
Either  the  ruin  of  the  state  or  a  bloody  revolution  was  obviously 
at  hand. 

Scared  at  the  results  of  their  own  usurious  greed,  the  Eupatrids 
were  induced  to  entrust  power  to  Solon,  as  the  one  man  whose 
integrity  was  acknowledged  both  by  rich  and  poor,  and  who  could 
still  stave  off  a  collision.  In  594  b.c.^  if  our  chronology  is  correct, 
Solon  was  elected  archon,  and  entrusted  with  the  duty  of  drafting 
a  new  constitution  for  the  city. 


104;  GREECE 

594    B.C. 

The  first  part  of  Solon's  legislation  was  directed  to  the  practi- 
cal end  of  alleviating  the  miserable  condition  of  the  debtors.  He 
forbade  the  lending  of  money  on  the  security  of  the  borrower's 
person,  and  canceled  not  only  loans  so  contracted,  but  all  outstand- 
ing debts  of  every  kind ;  a  desperate  measure  which  only  dire  need 
could  excuse.  It  would  seem  that  he  even  removed  the  feudal  rent 
of  one-sixth  which  the  ^Exrr^iwpot  had  paid,  and  thereby  turned  them 
from  villeins  into  freeholders,  owning  the  land  they  tilled.  The 
state  renounced  all  sums  owing  to  it  from  the  poorer  citizens, 
whether  due  as  arrears  of  taxes  or  as  fines.  These  measures  brought 
about  a  perceptible  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  community; 
the  newly  manumitted  debtors  swelled  the  roll  of  citizens,  and  the 
growth  of  prosperity  supplied  some  ground  of  hoping  that  a  crisis 
of  the  same  kind  would  not  recur  again. 

Another  innovation  of  Solon's  was  destined  to  improve  the 
economic  condition  of  Athens  in  a  much  more  indirect  fashion. 
The  city  had  down  to  this  time  been  using  money  struck  on  the 
Pheidonian  standard,  such  as  circulated  in  Peloponnesus  or  Boeotia. 
Solon  made  a  sweeping  change  by  striking  coins  based,  not  on  this 
standard,  but  on  that  known  as  the  Euboic,  which  Was  employed 
in  the  great  commercial  cities  of  Chalcis  and  Eretria.  This  made 
the  currency  of  Athens  interchangeable  with  that  of  her  wealthy 
Ionic  neighbors,  though  it  somewhat  complicated  exchanges  with 
Aegina  or  Thebes.  Both  politically  and  commercially  this  was  an 
excellent  move.  The  new  money,  of  which  the  drachma  weighed 
only  sixty-seven  grains  and  a  half,  was  coined  into  tetradrachms, 
while  the  old,  whose  unit  had  weighed  about  ninety-five  grains,  had 
never  possessed  a  higher  multiple  than  the  didrachm. 

The  constitutional  reforms  of  Solon  are  even  more  important 
than  his  economical  legislation.  They  were  the  starting-point  of 
all  political  liberty  in  Athens,  and  their  importance  was  so  impressed 
on  the  citizens  of  later  years  that  all  early  laws  were  put  down  to 
him,  just  as  all  Spartan  regulations  came  to  be  ascribed  to  Lycurgus. 
Solon  was  a  man  of  just  and  liberal  soul,  and  a  sincere  friend  of  the 
people;  but  he  was  also  a  noble,  with  a  rooted  dislike  to  democratic 
methods  of  government.  His  aim  was  to  construct  a  constitution 
which  should  give  the  proletariate  an  ultimate  control  over  the  ad- 
ministration of  public  affairs,  without  allowing  them  the  power  to 
interfere  in  matters  of  detail.  The  nobles  were  no  longer  to  govern 
at  their  own  good  will  and  for  their  own  benefit;  but  they — rein- 


SOLON    AND    PEISISTRATUS  105 

594    B.C. 

forced  by  the  richest  of  the  non-noble  classes — were  to  continue 
to  administer  the  state,  under  due  control  and  for  the  benefit  of  the 
whole  community. 

Even  before  Solon's  time  the  division  of  the  people  into  classes 
arranged  according  to  their  wealth  had  perhaps  been  known.  Pos- 
sibly it  may  have  been  employed  as  early  as  Draco's  time,  for  pur- 
poses of  taxation  only,  but  Solon  determined  to  use  the  system  as  a 
political  instead  of  a  merely  economic  institution.  He  abolished 
all  the  privileges  of  birth  which  the  Eupatridae  had  enjoyed,  sub- 
stituted a  "  timocracy "  for  an  "  aristocracy."  and  made  wealth, 
not  birth,  the  test  of  eligibility  for  office.  The  first  of  the  four 
Solonian  classes  was  called  that  of  the  Pentckosioincdimni,  and  in- 
cluded, as  its  name  shows,  all  citizens  whose  annual  income  from 
land  was  equivalent  to  five  hundred  medimni  of  corn,  or  exceeded 
that  amount.  The  second  class,  that  of  the  Hippeis,  or  knights, 
comprised  everyone  whose  income  ranged  between  five  hundred 
and  three  hundred  medimni.  The  third  class,  the  Zeugitae 
("owners  of  a  yoke  of  oxen"),  included  those  whose  income  was 
more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  medimni,  and  less  than  three  hundred. 
Finally,  the  fourth  class,  or  Thctcs,  was  composed  of  all  whose 
income  fell  short  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  medimni.  Landed  property 
only  was  assessed,  not  commercial  gains  or  hoarded  wealth,  so  that 
to  qualify  for  the  three  higher  classes  a  merchant  or  artisan  had  to 
invest  in  a  smaller  or  larger  plot  of  land. 

This  arrangement  placed  the  majority  of  the  Eupatridae  in  the 
first  two  classes,  while  the  bulk  of  the  yeomen  of  Attica  fell  into 
the  ranks  of  the  Zeugitae,  and  the  artisans  were  nearly  all  Thetes. 
But  a  fair  proportion  of  wealthy  merchants  who  had  bought  land, 
and  a  certain  number  of  rich  yeomen,  were  mixed  among  the 
Pentekosiomedimni  and  Hippeis,  while  a  few  ruined  Eupatrids,  we 
may  suppose,  sank  to  the  status  of  the  Thetes. 

When  Solon,  therefore,  restricted  the  archonship  to  those  who 
were  Pentekosiomedimni,  he  practically  left  the  supreme  magistracy 
of  the  state  in  the  hands  of  the  nobles.  To  other  minor  offices  the 
Hippeis  and  Zeugitae  were  eligible,  but  the  Thetes  were  excluded 
altogether  from  the  public  service;  as  a  compensation,  they  were 
also  excluded  from  all  taxation.  In  time  of  war  they  were  to  serve 
as  light  troops,  while  the  Zeugitae  fought  as  heavy-armed  infantry 
and  the  Hippeis  as  horsemen. 

The  constitutional  reforms  of  Solon  had  as  their  main  aim  a 


106  GREECE 

594    B.C. 

rearrangement  of  the  relations  of  the  archons  and  the  Areopagus 
with  the  Senate  and  public  assembly,  so  that  each  was  to  have  its 
share  in  the  guidance  of  the  state.  The  archons  retained  their  old 
functions,  but  were  in  future  to  be  elected  by  an  ingenious  mixture 
of  selection  and  chance.  The  four  tribes  each  chose  ten  candidates, 
and  from  these  forty  men  the  nine  archons  were  chosen  by  lot.  This 
system  was  probably  intended  to  obviate  an  attempt  to  introduce 
party  government :  it  would  be  most  unlikely  that  all  the  successful 
candidates  would  be  of  the  same  political  faction.  The  archons  at 
the  end  of  their  year  of  office  were  to  pass  a  public  examination 
{edduvT}),  at  which  they  were  made  responsible  before  the  assembly 
for  all  their  acts  during  their  tenure  of  power. 

The  Areopagus  ceded  many  of  its  functions  to  a  Council  or 
Senate  of  Four  Hundred,  composed  of  a  hundred  members  chosen 
from  each  of  the  four  tribes  into  which  the  Athenians  (like  other 
Ionic  communities)  were  divided.  This  Senate  or  Boule  took  over 
all  the  more  clearly  political  duties  of  the  Areopagus,  such  as  pre- 
paring measures  to  be  put  before  the  assembly,  or  receiving 
embassies. 

We  may  perhaps  compare  Solon's  Boule  to  the  Roman  Senate, 
while  the  Areopagus,  as  reformed  by  him,  may  be  likened  to  the 
Roman  Censorship.  It  was  to  undertake  the  moral  supervision  of 
the  state :  on  its  own  initiative  and  without  incurring  any  responsi- 
bility it  might  inquire  into  the  public  or  private  life  of  any  citizen, 
and  inflict  fines  and  forfeitures  on  him  if  it  considered  his  conduct 
obnoxious.  Profligacy,  insolence,  and  idleness  w^ere  punished  by 
the  Areopagus,  no  less  than  crimes  which  fell  under  the  letter  of 
the  law.  In  addition  to  this  wide  censorial  power,  it  had  the  func- 
tion of  trying  all  cases  of  international  homicide — a  charge  which 
it  had  exercised  from  time  immemorial,  ever  since  (so  Attic  tradi- 
tion ran)  Ares  had  been  indicted  before  it  for  slaying  Halirrhothius, 
the  son  of  Poseidon.  The  court  was  recruited  from  ex-archons, 
as  in  earlier  days,  and  therefore  remained  a  center  of  Eupatrid 
influence,  for  the  majority  of  the  archons  w^re  still  chosen  from  the 
old  houses.  It  was,  no  doubt,  intended  to  curb  all  citizens  who 
showed  any  signs  of  practicing  demagogic  arts,  or  aimed  at  estab- 
lishing a  tyranny. 

The  Ecclcsia,  or  public  assembly  of  Athens,  was  hitherto 
nothing  more  than  a  survival  of  the  Homeric  Agora,  a  body  con- 
vened to  hear  the  promulgation  of  such  decrees  as  the  archons  and 


SOLON    AND    PEISISTRATUS  107 

594  B.C. 

the  oligarchy  chose  to  pubHsh.  Solon  made  it  powerful.  The 
most  important  function  that  it  received,  "  the  measure  by  which 
it  is  agreed  that  the  democracy  got  its  main  power," — in  the  words 
of  Aristotle — was  the  right  of  trying  all  magistrates,  and  of  investi- 
gating their  actions  at  the  end  of  their  year  of  ofhce.  Thus  it  was 
secured  that  the  archons  should  owe  their  power  to  the  people,  and 
be  kept  in  view  of  their  responsibility  to  their  constituents  all  through 
their  tenure  of  office.  The  assembly  w^as  also,  as  we  must  conclude, 
entrusted  with  the  supreme  decision  in  such  matters  as  treaties  or 
declarations  of  war,  and  gave  a  final  vote  in  favor  of  or  against  such 
measures  as  the  Boule  put  before  it.  This  was  as  far  as  Solon 
wished  to  go  in  democratizfng  the  constitution ;  he  had  no  intention 
of  handing  over  either  administrative  or  legislative  business  to  the 
Ecclesia. 

To  sum  up  the  constitution  of  Solon,  we  may  say  that  the  state 
was  to  be  administered  by  such  of  the  Eupatridae  as  the  people 
thought  worthy;  that  its  moral  supervision  was  entrusted  to  the 
Areopagus ;  that  the  Boule  guided  its  foreign  and  domestic  policy, 
while  the  Ecclesia  exercised  an  effective  but  indirect  control  over 
the  whole  of  the  machinery  of  government.  The  legislator  himself 
claimed  that  "  he  gave  the  people  so  much  power  as  was  sufficient, 
neither  defrauding  them  nor  aw^arding  them  more  than  w^as  their 
share ;  while  as  for  those  who  had  wealth  and  position,  he  was  careful 
that  they  should  suffer  no  wrong.  Both  classes  were  protected,  and 
neither  was  allowed  to  molest  the  other." 

Besides  the  constitutional  enactments,  a  large  number  of  laws 
of  all  kinds  were  to  be  found  in  the  legislation  of  Solon.  They 
ranged  over  all  provinces  of  life,  and  to  a  great  extent  did  away 
with  the  previous  code  of  Draco.  A  few  of  them  are  worth  mention. 
He  first  gave  the  right  of  disposing  of  property  by  will  to  citizens 
destitute  of  children :  previously  their  kinsmen  inherited  everything, 
and  the  owner  could  not  divert  his  property  from  them.  He  relaxed 
the  harshness  of  the  control  which  old  usage  had  given  to  the  father 
over  his  sons ;  he  forbade  arbitrary  disinheritance ;  and  even  enacted 
that  a  father  who  had  not  taught  his  son  some  useful  trade  had  no 
claim  to  be  maintained  by  that  son  when  he  arrived  at  old  age. 
A  number  of  sumptuary  laws  directed  the  attention  of  the  Areopagus 
against  luxury.  Trade  was  favored  by  the  permission  given  to 
foreigners  to  take  up  the  citizenship,  after  solemnly  disavowing 
allegiance  to  their  old  country,  and  swearing  fealty  to  Athens.   But 


108  GREECE 

594-582    B.C. 

perhaps  the  most  noteworthy  clause  in  the  whole  legislation  was  that 
which  imposed  disfranchisement  on  the  citizen  who,  in  a  time  of 
civil  strife,  did  not  take  one  side  or  the  other.  Solon  feared  that 
the  existence  of  a  body  of  timid  and  cautious  neutrals  would  be 
fatal  to  public  spirit,  and  favor  the  growth  of  tliat  apathy  which 
makes  tyrannies  possible. 

The  laws  of  Solon  were  inscribed  on  wooden  pyramids,  called 
Kurhcis,  some  of  them  three-sided,  some  four-sided,  and  all  about 
the  height  of  a  man.  They  stood  on  the  Acropolis  till  the  Persian 
wars,  when  they  were  removed  for  safety  to  Salamis.  Afterwards 
they  were  placed  in  the  Prytaneum,  and  fragments  of  them  were 
still  on  view  in  the  time  of  Plutarch  (a.d.  120). 

Many  legends  grew  up  around  the  later  life  of  Solon.  We  are 
told  that  he  exiled  himself  for  ten  years,  in  order  to  avoid  the 
importunities  of  those  who  urged  him  to  supplement  his  legislation 
with  further  clauses.  His  travels  took  him  far  afield — to  Cyprus, 
Egypt,  and  Asia  Minor.  Everywhere  that  he  went  tales  grew  up 
to  illustrate  his  profound  wisdom  and  practical  ability.  In  Cyprus 
he  fixed  the  site  of  the  flourishing  city  of  Soli.  In  Lydia  it  was 
fabled  that  he  visited  King  Croesus,  and  viewed  unmoved  all  the 
splendors  of  an  Oriental  court.  Then,  v.hen  his  host  asked  him  who 
was  the  happiest  man  in  the  world,  expecting  to  hear  himself  named, 
Solon  first  mentioned  a  worthy  but  obscure  citizen  of  Athens,  who 
had  fallen  gloriously  in  battle,  and  then  two  young  Argives  who  had 
met  their  death  in  the  performance  of  an  act  of  filial  piety.  Croesus 
was  offended  at  the  moment,  but  learned  by  bitter  experience  "  to 
call  no  man  happy  till  he  was  dead."  Unfortunately,  the  legend  of 
the  interview  is  rendered  quite  impossible  by  the  dates :  it  is  merely 
one  of  the  moral  apologues  with  which  the  Greeks  loved  to  illustrate 
the  instability  of  mortal  happiness. 

When  Solon  returned  to  his  native  city  he  had  the  disappoint- 
ment of  discovering  that  his  constitution,  in  spite  of  its  fairness  and 
its  ingenius  system  of  checks  on  the  various  members  of  the  ad- 
ministration, had  not  sufficed  to  reduce  the  state  to  order.  The 
local  factions  of  the  Plain,  the  Shcjre,  and  the  Upland  were  still 
engaged  in  political  strife.  As  early  as  582  b.c.  an  archon  named 
Damasias  illegally  prolonged  his  office  over  a  second  year,  and  had 
to  be  deposed  by  armed  force.  The  populace,  having  once  got  a 
taste  of  power  in  the  new  privilege  of  impeaching  magistrates,  was 
eager  to  extend  its  rights.     The  Eupatridae  were  still  yearning  after 


SOLON    AND    PEISISTRATUS  109 

582-558    B.C. 

the  old  days  of  oligarchy.  The  commercial  classes  found  that  the 
exclusion  of  all  property  except  land  from  the  assessment  which 
settled  the  status  of  citizens,  hindered  them  from  taking  the  part 
in  public  affairs  which  they  regarded  as  their  due.  No  one  was 
enthusiastic  in  defense  of  the  Solonian  constitution,  for  it  satisfied 
no  one. 

While  the  Eupatridae  of  the  Plain  were  headed  by  Lycurgus 
and  Miltiades,  a  kinsman  of  the  Corinthian  tyrants,  the  merchants 
of  the  Shore  found  a  leader  in  Megacles  the  Alcmaeonid,  grandson 
of  that  Megacles  who  had  murdered  the  adherents  of  Cylon.  The 
poor  men  of  the  Upland  had  placed  themselves  under  a  young  and 
energetic  leader,  one  of  those -men  of  oligarchic  birth  who  in  every 
Greek  city  were  found  ready  to  desert  their  class  and  take  up  the 
career  of  a  demagogue.  It  must  have  added  to  Solon's  grief  to  find 
that  this  adventurer  was  his  own  kinsman,  Peisistratus,  the  son  of 
Hippocrates.  The  last  years  of  the  legislator  were  spent  in  unavail- 
ing warnings  to  the  democracy  of  Athens  that  they  were  "  treading 
in  the  footsteps  of  the  fox,"  and  preparing  the  way  for  a  tyranny 
by  attaching  themselves  to  the  train  of  the  ambitious  young  man. 

Solon's  denunciations  of  demagogic  arts  were  quite  useless. 
When  Peisistratus  persuaded  the  people  that  his  life  had  been 
attempted  by  assassins  hired  by  the  men  of  the  Plain,  the  assembly 
voted  him  a  body-guard  of  fifty  club-men,  in  spite  of  the  opposition 
of  the  Boule.  The  club-men  were  ere  long  armed  with  deadlier 
weapons,  their  numbers  increased,  and  one  morning  Athens  woke 
to  find  them  in  occupation  of  the  Acropolis.  It  was  just  seventy- 
two  years  since  the  similar  attempt  of  Cylon ;  but  the  times  had 
changed :  unlike  Cylon,  Peisistratus  had  a  strong  following  among 
the  people,  while  his  adversaries  were  divided  into  two  hostile 
camps.  Megacles  left  Athens:  Miltiades  accepted  the  offer  of  a 
barbarian  tribe  in  Thrace,  who  wanted  an  experienced  leader  in 
war,  and  departed  to  take  over  the  sovereignty  of  the  Thracian 
Chersonese.  Peisistratus  became  tyrant  of  Athens  without  opposi- 
tion, and  when  Solon,  in  558  B.C.,  died,  full  of  years  and  honors,  he 
died  as  the  subject  of  a  despotic  monarch.  The  last  months  of  his 
life  were  not  embittered  by  oppression,  for  his  kinsman  treated  him 
with  every  mark  of  respect;  but  the  old  man  shut  himself  up  in  his 
house,  and  refused  to  be  comforted.  The  work  of  his  life  seemed 
to  have  been  entirely  wasted. 

Peisistratus  showed  himself  an  able  and  moderate  ruler :  he  did 


110  GREECE 

558-535    B.C. 

everything  in  his  power  to  promote  the  material  welfare  of  the 
poorer  classes,  who  had  rendered  his  rise  possible,  and  did  not  slay 
or  banish  the  rich.  This  mildness  encouraged  the  men  of  the  Shore 
and  Plain  to  combine  to  dethrone  him;  the  exiled  Megacles  and  the 
Eupatrid  Lycurgus  headed  a  rising,  and  the  tyrant  was  driven  out. 
But  the  Athenian  factions  were  not  yet  taught  wisdom;  the  mer- 
chants and  the  nobles  could  not  learn  to  work  together,  and  Mega- 
cles, enraged  with  Lycurgus,  entered  into  treasonable  negotiations 
with  the  ex-tyrant.  To  spite  the  Plain,  the  Shore  consented  to  join 
the  Upland.  This  insured  the  return  of  Peisistratus.  The  manner 
of  it  requires  a  word  of  notice,  as  one  of  the  most  characteristic  and 
extraordinary  events  of  the  age.  Megacles  found  a  tall  and  stately 
woman  named  Phya.  arrayed  her  in  armor,  and  conducted  her  to 
the  city  in  a  chariot,  giving  out  that  Athena,  the  tutelary  goddess  of 
the  city,  had  appeared  in  person  to  command  the  restoration  of 
Peisistratus!  The  people  obeyed,  the  gates  were  thrown  open,  and 
the  tyrant  was  once  more  master  of  Athens.  If  this  tale  is  true, 
the  Athenians,  as  Herodotus  remarks,  instead  of  being  the  wisest 
of  the  Greeks,  deserved  a  prize  for  credulous  simplicity.  For  six 
years  Megacles  and  Peisistratus  held  together,  and  the  alliance  was 
cemented  by  the  tyrant's  marriage  to  the  Alcmaeonid's  daughter. 
But  at  last  they  quarreled,  and  Megacles  once  more  led  over  his 
followers  to  join  the  men  of  the  Plain.  After  a  short  struggle, 
Peisistratus  was  for  the  second  time  expelled  from  Attica.  He 
retired  to  Thrace,  gathered  men  and  money  there,  and  waited  for 
the  factions  of  Athens  to  give  him  a  third  opportunity  for  action. 

For  no  less  than  ten  years  he  watched  for  the  times  to  become 
ripe,  keeping  up  communications  with  his  party  in  the  Upland  of 
Attica,  and  looking  out  for  men  likely  to  aid  him  in  an  expedition. 
At  last  (535  B.C.)  he  landed  in  Attica  at  the  head  of  his  own  fol- 
lowing, strengthened  by  a  band  of  Argive  mercenaries  and  by  a 
body  of  Naxian  exiles  under  Lygdamis,  once  tyrant  of  that  island. 
The  Athenian  army  marched  on  Marathon,  where  Peisistratus  had 
landed.  They  faced  the  invaders  at  Pallene,  and  a  battle  appeared 
imminent,  but  the  tyrant  at  first  avoided  an  action.  When,  however, 
the  Athenians  had  broken  their  ranks,  and  retired  to  take  their 
midday  meal,  Peisistratus  unexpectedly  fell  upon  them,  and  routed 
them  without  trouble  and  almost  without  slaughter.  His  sons 
rode  after  the  fugitives,  and  shouted  to  them  that  all  who  dispersed 
homewards  shoukl  be  granted  an  amnesty;  after  this  the  leaders  of 


SOLON    AND    PEISISTKATUS  111 

635-527  B.C. 

the  citizens  found  themselves  so  deserted  by  their  followers  that 
no  further  resistance  could  be  offered.  The  tyrant  re-entered  the 
city  without  having  to  strike  a  second  blow. 

During  his  third  reign  Peisistratus  showed  himself  a  more 
strict  and  cautious,  but  hardly  a  more  oppressive,  ruler  than  in  his 
previous  tenures  of  power.  He  kept  up  the  forms  of  the  Solonian 
constitution,  though  he  always  took  care  to  have  some  one  of  his 
own  family  at  the  head  of  the  board  of  archons.  An  income-tax  of 
5  per  cent,  was  the  only  extraordinary  burden  which  he  imposed 
upon  the  people,  and  the  proceeds  of  this  were  used  to  strengthen 
and  adorn  the  city,  and  not  to  pile  up  a  private  treasure  or  support 
private  luxury.  The  support  which  he  gave  to  the  state  religion 
was  particularly  marked;  he  increased  the  splendor  of  the  Pana- 
thenaea,  the  festival  of  the  tutelary  goddess  of  the  city;  he  insti- 
tuted a  new  feast  in  honor  of  Dionysus ;  and  he  commenced  a  temple 
to  the  Olympian  Zeus  on  such  a  grand  scale  that  it  was  never  com- 
pleted till  the  reign  of  the  Roman  Emperor  Hadrian,  six  hundred 
and  seventy  years  after.  He  gathered  literary  men  from  all  parts 
about  his  court,  though  the  legend  that  he  employed  them  to  collate 
and  edit  the  text  of  Homer  is  probably  without  foundation.  His 
foreign  policy  was  one  of  peace;  he  strengthened  himself  by  alliances 
with  the  houses  of  tyrants  which  still  survived  in  Greece  and  Asia 
Minor,  but '  at  the  same  time  courted  the  favor  of  Sparta,  the 
implacable  enemy  of  tyranny  in  Peloponnesus. 

Peisistratus  died  in  peace  thirty-three  years  after  his  first,  and 
eight  years  after  his  last,  seizure  of  Athens.  He  was  succeeded 
by  his  sons  Hippias  and  Hipparchus,  who  ruled  in  great  harmony, 
unlike  most  brother-kings.  They  persevered  for  some  years  in  the 
benevolent  despotism  of  their  father,  and  only  left  his  steps  in 
foreign  policy,  where  they  followed  a  bolder  line.  The  town  of 
Plataea,  having  left  the  Boeotian  league  on  account  of  a  feud  with 
Thebes,  craved  the  protection  of  Athens,  and  obtained  it,  though 
this  alliance  involved  the  Peisistratidae  in  a  war  with  their  northern 
neighbors.  They  carried  it  to  a  victorious  end,  and  seemed  likely 
to  reign  long  and  successfully.  But  ere  long  a  catastrophe 
occurred  to  change  the  course  of  Athenian  history. 

Hipparchus  was  thoroughly  immoral  in  his  private  life;  he 
was  foiled  in  a  disreputable  love-affair  which  concerned  the  honor 
of  a  noble  family,  and  revenged  himself  by  a  public  insult.  Har- 
modius  the  Gephyrean,  the  victim  of  the  tyrant's  anger,  was  driven 


112  GREECE 

527-510  B.C. 

to  a  reckless  revenge,  and  organized  a  conspiracy  against  the  lives 
of  the  brother-despots.  He  and  his  friend  Aristogeiton  joined 
with  a  few  others  to  fall  on  the  Peisistratidae  at  the  festival  of  the 
Panathenaea.  Owing  to  a  misconception  they  made  their  onslaught 
too  soon,  and  struck  down  Hipparchus  before  Ilippias  had  arrived 
on  the  scene.  The  guards  slew  Harmodius  on  the  spot ;  the  rest 
were  caught  and  executed.  Aristogeiton  suffered  fearfully  before 
his  death,  as  Hippias  tried  in  vain  to  wring  from  him  1)y  torture 
the  names  of  all  involved  in  the  conspiracy.  This  reckless  act  of 
private  vengeance  was  the  indirect  cause  of  the  overthrow  of 
tyranny  at  Athens,  and  for  that  reason  the  names  of  Harmodius 
and  Aristogeiton  were  held  in  rather  undeserved  veneration  at 
Athens  down  to  the  latest  days  of  the  republic. 

Maddened  by  his  brother's  death,  and  his  own  narrow  escape 
from  assassination,  Hippias  changed  his  whole  system  of  govern- 
ment. He  crowded  the  city  with  mercenaries,  began  to  make  away 
with  everyone  that  he  suspected  of  discontent,  raised  arbitrary 
taxes,  and  commenced  a  series  of  petty  vexations  which  drove  the 
Athenians  to  desperation.  This  led  to  an  open  rising;  Cleisthenes 
the  Alcmaeonid,  son  of  Megacles,  the  old  leader  of  the  faction  of 
the  Shore,  returned  from  exile,  and  headed  an  abortive  rebellion. 
It  was  crushed  by  the  tyrant's  mercenaries,  but  Cleisthenes  then  set 
diplomacy  to  work.  He  was  in  high  favor  at  Delphi,  where  he  had 
won  the  gratitude  of  the  priesthood  by  the  munificent  liberality  with 
which  he  had  restored  the  great  temple  after  a  disastrous  fire. 
Instigated  by  him,  the  Delphic  priestess  would  give  no  answer  when 
the  state  of  Sparta  sent  to  inquire  of  Apollo,  except  that  "  Athens 
ought  to  be  liberated."  A  series  of  such  replies  screwed  the  super- 
stitious Spartans  up  to  the  necessary  pitch  of  reverent  obedience. 
Disregarding  their  old  friendship  with  Peisistratus,  they  invaded 
Attica.  They  were  beaten  in  the  first  engagement  by  a  desperate 
charge  of  the  tyrant's  Thessalian  cavalry.  Then  their  vigorous  and 
able  king,  Cleomenes,  was  sent  to  take  command ;  he  defeated 
Plippias,  and  shut  him  up  in  the  city.  The  Acropolis  would  have 
stood  a  long  siege,  but  fortune  interfered  to  crush  the  tyrant.  His 
children  were  captured  by  the  Spartans  as  they  were  being  secretly 
conveyed  out  of  Attica,  and  to  preserve  their  lives  Hippias  con- 
sented to  surrender  the  citadel  if  he  and  his  were  allowed  a  safe 
conduct  to  Asia.  The  Spartans  consented,  and  in  the  seventeenth 
year  of  his  reign  the  tyrant  evacuated  Athens,  and  sailed  away 


SOLON    AND    PEISISTRATUS  113 

510   B.C. 

v.'ith  his  family  and  his  mercenaries,  to  seek  refuge  at  Sigeum  in 
the  Troad,  a  small  town  which  Peisistratus,  foreseeing  some  such 
catastrophe,  had  got  into  his  hands  many  years  before.  Here  he 
settled  down,  paid  homage  to  the  Persian  king  as  overlord,  and 
awaited  the  return  of  better  days,  much  as  his  father  had  done  at 
Eretria  forty  years  before.  Meanwhile  at  Athens  the  republic  was 
restored,  and  a  new  era  began. 


Chapter  XIII 

THE  LYDIAN  MONARCHY,  700-546  B.C. 

DOWN  to  the  commencement  of  the  seventh  century  the 
I  Greeks  of  Asia  had  pursued  their  career  of  expansion 
without  meeting  with  any  dangers  from  the  inland.  In 
the  north  the  Aeoh'ans  had  driven  the  Teucrians  and  Mysians  away 
from  the  coast.  In  the  south  the  lonians  and  Carians  had  arrived 
at  a  modus  vivendi,  and  were  often  to  be  found  joining  together  in 
expeditions  such  as  that  which,  in  656  B.C.,  placed  Psammetichus  on 
the  throne  of  Egypt.  In  the  center,  filling  the  upper  valleys  of  the 
Hermus  and  Cayster,  lay  the  kingdom  of  Lydia,  the  westernmost 
extension  of  the  old  empire  of  the  Hittites,  governed  by  a  race  of 
princes  whose  origin  the  Greeks  ascribed  to  some  Asiatic  god  whom 
they  identified  with  Heracles.  For  many  generations  these  kings 
seem  to  have  had  no  hostile  relations  with  their  Greek  neighbors  on 
the  coast,  and  were  content  to  serve  as  middlemen  in  the  great 
line  of  commerce  which  ran  through  their  capital  of  Sardis, 
and  connected  Ephesus  and  Miletus  with  the  Euphrates  and 
Assyria. 

The  Asiatic  Greeks  went  through  much  the  same  constitutional 
developments  as  their  European  brethren,  with  the  exception  that 
their  oligarchies  were  usually  founded  on  wealth  rather  than  birth, 
as  was  inevitable  in  cities  where  the  population  had  from  the  first 
been  much  mixed.  Tyrants  appeared,  in  Asia  no  less  than  Europe, 
to  sweep  away  the  monopoly  of  the  oligarchs,  and  when  history 
becomes  continuous  in  the  seventh  century,  we  find  the  states  of 
Ionia  and  Aeolis  governed  some  by  still-surviving  oligarchies,  some 
by  tyrants,  some  by  democracies  which  had  risen  when  tyrants  had 
been  swept  away.  The  universal  opinion  of  Greece  pronounced  the 
lonians  and  their  neighbors  to  be  the  best  merchants  but  the  worst 
soldiers  of  the  Hellenic  world.  Their  feats  of  exploration  and  their 
activity  in  colonizing  were  unrivaled,  but  they  did  not  pass  as  good 
fighting  men.  Their  European  brethren  accused  them  of  indolence 
and  luxury,  and  asserted  that  the  softness  and  languor  of  the  climate 

114 


LYDIAN    MONARCHY  115 

Circa   700-550   B.C. 

of  Asia,  and  the  admixture  of  Oriental  blood  which  had  resulted 
from  the  Carian  marriages  of  the  early  settlers,  had  combined  to 
weaken  and  demoralize  them.  Civilization  and  luxury  developed 
among  them  long  before  they  reached  Greece.  The  arts  of  music 
and  lyric  poetry  were  especially  their  own;  the  Lesbian  poetess 
Sappho  sang  of  love  in  passionate  tones  which  no  other  Hellenic 
poet  could  ever  equal;  her  countryman  Alcaeus  was  equally  cele- 
brated for  his  praises  of  wine  and  beauty,  and  for  his  political  poems. 
Anacreon  of  Teos  was  a  mere  jovial  voluptuary,  a  bad  specimen  of 
the  worst  Ionian  type,  but  made  himself  a  great  name  by  his  songs. 
It  was  in  Asia  Minor  also  that  philosophy — the  product  of  a  self- 
conscious  civilization  which  too  often  marks  the  decay  of  civic 
virtue — made  its  earliest  appearance  among  the  Greeks.  It  took  at 
first  the  comparatively  harmless  form  of  inquiry  into  the  phenomena 
of  nature,  and  speculations  as  to  the  physical  basis  of  life  and 
creation^  which  some  philosophers  sought  in  the  primary  principle 
of  air,  others  in  that  of  fire,  others  again  in  that  of  water.  Thales 
of  Miletus  (circ.  640-550  B.C.)  was  the  best  known  of  the  early 
philosophers ;  in  spite  of  his  speculative  bent,  he  was  a  man  of  great 
practical  ability,  and  worked  out  a  plan  for  the  federation  of  the 
Greek  cities  of  Asia  which  would  have  saved  them  many  a  disaster 
if  it  had  been  carried  out.  There  would  appear  to  have  been  less 
political  intercourse  between  the  Greeks  of  Asia  and  those  of  Europe 
than  might  have  been  expected,  when  we  remember  the  narrowness 
of  the  Aegean.  The  chief  occasion  on  which  they  are  found  in 
contact  was  the  Lelantine  war  (circ.  700  B.C.).  This  was  nominally 
a  struggle  to  settle  whether  Chalcis  or  Eretria  should  own  the  plain 
of  Lelas,  which  lay  between  their  walls.  But  in  real  fact  it  was  a 
commercial  war  between  two  bands  of  allied  states  who  were  bound 
together  by  their  trade  interests.  Eretria  was  aided  by  Miletus, 
Chalcis  by  Samos,  and  the  war  raged  over  the  Asiatic  as  well  as  the 
European  shore  of  the  Aegean.^  In  the  West  Chalcis  would  seem 
to  have  had  the  better  of  her  neighbor,  but  in  Asia  Samos  was  never 
able  to  shake  the  commercial  predominence  of  Miletus. 

About  the  year  685  B.C.,  the  period  during  which  the  Asiatic 
Greeks  had  been  able  to  carry  out  their  great  schemes  of  coloniza- 
tion, and  to  fight  out  their  civil  broils  undisturbed  by  interference 
from  without,  suddenly  came  to  an  end.     The  new  factor  intro- 

1  It  seems  probable  that  the  two  alliances  were  (i)  Chalcis,  Samos,  Thessaly, 
Corinth;   (2)   Eretria,  Miletus,  Aegina.     Details  are  wanting. 


116  GREECE 

668-568    B.C. 

duced  into  their  history  was  the  aggressive  policy  of  the  kings  of 
Lydia. 

Gyges,  a  noble  of  the  house  of  the  Mermnadae.  after  slaying 
his  master  Candaules,  the  last  of  the  old  royal  line,  had  usurped  the 
throne  of  Lydia.  He  at  once  abandoned  the  peaceful  policy  of  his 
predecessors,  and  set  to  work  to  attack  the  Greek  cities  of  the  coast. 
The  Lydians  were  a  bold  warlike  race,  the  best  horsemen  of  Asia, 
and  the  lonians  could  offer  them  no  resistance  in  the  field.  The 
war  became  one  of  sieges ;  Gyges  took  Colophon,  though  he  failed 
before  Smyrna  and  Miletus.  In  the  midst  of  his  career  he  was 
summoned  home  by  a  crisis  which  freed  the  lonians  from  fear  for 
another  generation.  A  wild  race  from  the  north,  the  Cimmerians, 
had  been  pushed  into  Asia  Minor  by  pressure  from  yet  more  un- 
known tribes  in  their  rear.  They  swept  over  the  land,  burning  and 
devastating  all  before  them.  The  Greek  city  of  Sinope  and  the 
native  monarchy  of  Phrygia  were  completely  destroyed  by  them. 
Gyges,  in  spite  of  his  energy,  only  succeeded  in  saving  his  kingdom 
by  becoming  the  vassal  of  Assurbanipal,  King  of  Assyria.  This 
protection  was  withdrawn  when  he  revolted  a  few  years  later,  and 
the  Cimmerians  almost  made  an  end  of  Lydia.  Gyges  was  slain  in 
battle,  the  valley  of  the  Hermus  harried,  and  Sardis,  save  its  citadel, 
taken  by  the  barbarians  in  660  b.c. 

Ardys,  the  successor  of  Gyges,  was  many  years  on  the  throne 
before  he  could  get  free  from  the  Cimmerians.  When  this  danger 
was  over,  he  renewed  his  father's  policy  of  attacking  the  Greeks,  and 
captured  Priene.  But  again  the  inroads  of  the  barbarians  came  to 
the  rescue  of  the  lonians;  about  627  b.c.  another  Cimmerian  inva- 
sion, whose  westernmost  foray  resulted  in  the  sack  of  the  wealthy 
Aeolian  town  of  Magnesia,  called  Ardys  off  to  defend  the  limits  of 
his  own  kingdom. 

The  successors  of  Ardys,  his  son  Sadyattes  (622-610  b.c),  and 
his  grandson  Alyattes  (610-568  B.C.),  continued  the  traditional 
policy  of  their  race  by  attacking  the  Greek  cities,  more  especially 
Miletus,  the  great  stronghold  and  bulwark  of  Ionia.  The  Milesians 
were  easily  beaten  in  the  field,  but  their  walls  opposed  an  impassable 
barrier  to  the  Lydian  cavalry.  Alyattes  resolved,  we  are  told,  to 
starve  the  town  into  submission.  Every  midsummer,  when  corn 
and  fruit  began  to  ripen,  he  marched  into  the  Milesian  territory,  and 
beat  down  the  corn  and  felled  the  trees  to  the  sound  of  miHtary 
music.     After  several  years  of  assiduous  raiding,  he  had  occasion 


LYDIAN    MONARCHY  117 

568-546   B.C.C 

to  send  an  embassy  into  Miletus.  The  envoys  found  the  Milesians 
feasting  and  trafficking  as  if  the  ruin  of  their  country-side  was  a 
perfectly  indifferent  occurrence.  A  seaport  town  can  never  be 
starved  out  by  an  enemy  who  is  destitute  of  a  fleet,  and  this  fact 
Alyattes  now  realized.  He  made  peace  with  Miletus,  and  turned 
to  less  hopeless  enterprises.  The  Greek  town  of  Smyrna  fell  into 
his  hands,  but  his  great  conquests  lay  inland,  where  he  subdued 
Phrygia,  Bithynia,  and  all  the  lands  up  to  the  river  Halys.  Here 
he  met  the  equally  aggressive  armies  of  the  Medes,  and,  after  a 
drawn  battle  with  King  Cyaxares,  made  a  peace  which  laid  down 
the  Halys  as  the  boundary  between  the  two  empires.  Alyattes  died 
in  568  B.C.,  and  was  buried  in  a  great  barrow  which  he  had  caused 
his  subjects  to  pile  up  on  the  Plain  of  Sardis  during  the  last  years 
of  his  life. 

Croesus,  the  son  and  successor  of  Alyattes,  was  by  far  the  most 
powerful  of  the  race  of  the  Mermnadae.  His  enterprises  against 
the  coast-land  were  crowned  with  a  degree  of  success  which  had 
never  been  granted  to  his  ancestors.  Ephesus,  the  second  town  of 
Ionia,  fell  into  his  hands  in  the  very  commencement  of  his  reign,  and 
as  the  various  states  were  too  jealous  to  unite  in  a  league  against 
him,  one  after  the  other  was  compelled  to  do  him  homage.  Miletus, 
which  had  so  successfully  resisted  his  father,  had  now  sunk  into  a 
state  of  decay  consequent  on  wild  civil  strife.  It  had  just  got  rid 
of  a  tyrant,  Thrasybulus,  the  friend  and  adviser  of  Periander. 
To  celebrate  their  freedom,  the  Milesians  fell  to  blows  with 
each  other,  and  the  proletariate  vied  with  the  oligarchs  in  deeds 
whose  Oriental  atrocity  shocked  the  whole  Greek  world.  The  mob 
beat  the  children  of  the  rich  to  death  with  flails  on  threshing-floors ; 
their  opponents  replied  by  burning  their  prisoners  alive  in  pitch- 
coats.  No  help  was  found  in  Miletus  to  sustain  the  other  states, 
and  one  after  another  the  Ionic  and  Aeolic  cities  of  the  mainland 
submitted  to  Croesus,  and  began  to  pay  him  tribute.  The  king  even 
dreamed  for  a  moment  of  building  ships,  and  of  attacking  Chios, 
Lesbos,  and  the  other  islands  off  the  coast. 

This  idea  he  had  to  abandon  in  face  of  the  strong  fleets  of  the 
island  states,  and  the  entire  ignorance  of  naval  matters  which  his 
own  warriors  displayed.  But  on  the  mainland  he  was  undisputedly 
supreme  from  the  Hellespont  to  the  Halys.  The  tributes  of  the 
states  that  owned  him  as  overlord,  and  the  commercial  profits  which 
flowed  into  Sardis,  now  that  the  great  trade-route  between  Asia 


118  GREECE 

568-546    B.C. 

and  the  West  was  entirely  in  Lyclian  hands,  made  Croesus  wealthy 
beyond  the  wildest  dreams  of  Greek  avarice.  A  whole  cycle  of 
legends  illustrate  his  boundless  resources  and  overweening  self- 
confidence,  among  them  the  well-known  tale  of  his  interview  with 
Solon,  which  we  have  had  to  relate  elsewhere. 

Croesus  was  no  stolid  Oriental,  but  a  great  admirer  and  patron 
of  Greek  civilization.  He  was  particularly  well  known  for  his  devo- 
tion to  the  Greek  god  Apollo,  whose  temples  at  Branchidae  near 
Miletus,  and  at  Delphi  in  distant  Phocis,  he  crowded  with  gifts  of 
astonishing  magnificence.  He  gladly  received  Greeks  at  his  court, 
and  went  out  of  his  way  to  do  favors  to  the  more  important  states 
across  the  Aegean ;  Sparta,  in  particular,  he  bound  to  his  alliance 
by  a  munificent  gift  of  gold. 

But  while  Croesus  appeared  to  be  at  the  height  of  wealth  and 
power,  a  cloud  was  arising  in  the  East  which  portended  ruin  alike 
to  him  and  to  his  Hellenic  subjects. 


Chapter    XIV 

CYRUS   AND    DARIUS,    549-516   B.C. 

THE  century  which  lay  between  the  years  620  and  520  B.C. 
was  fraught  with  changes  of  a  more  rapid  and  sweeping 
kind  than  had  ever  before  been  known  in  the  East — 
changes,  too,  which  were  to  have  a  direct  influence  on  the  history 
of  Greece,  such  as  no  previous  events  in  Asia  had  ever  exercised. 
That  century  saw  the  ruin  of  five  great  empires — those  of  Assyria, 
Media,  Babylon,  Lydia,  and  Egypt — and  the  rise  of  a  sixth,  which 
absorbed  not  only  all  lands  that  had  obeyed  the  kings  whom  it 
supplanted,  but  vast  additional  tracts  to  east  and  west,  regions 
which  owe  their  first  appearance  in  history  to  this  conquest.  Finally 
the  new  monarchy  came  into  collision  with  the  Greeks.  Backed 
by  the  forces  of  all  nations  which  dwelt  between  the  Indus  and  the 
Aegean,  the  "  Great  King  "  of  the  East  marched  on  to  deal  with 
the  Hellenes  of  Europe  as  his  predecessors  had  dealt  with  the 
Hellenes  of  Asia.  But  in  the  Strait  of  Salamis  and  on  the  plains 
of  Plataea  his  projects  came  to  wreck.  Greece  was  saved,  and  with 
Greece  the  future  of  European  civilization.  The  West  repelled  the 
invading  East  so  thoroughly  that  for  eleven  hundred  years  no 
Oriental  conqueror  again  approached  the  Hellespont  to  threaten 
the  Balkan  Peninsula  with  annexation  to  an  Asiatic  realm.  ^ 

The  one  considerable  Oriental  power  with  which  the  Greeks 
down  to  the  sixth  century  had  any  prolonged  contact  was,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  the  kingdom  of  Lydia.  Behind  that  state  lay 
the  great  empire  of  Assyria,  which  for  three  hundred  years  had 
formed  by  far  the  strongest  power  in  Asia.  With  the  Assyrian 
kings  the  Greeks  had  not  many  direct  relations;  the  chief  occasion 
on  which  they  had  touched  Hellenic  history  was  when,  in  708  b.c.^ 
the  conqueror  Sargon  had  received  the  homage  of  the  Greek  princes 
of  Cyprus.  But  though  it  was  only  the  outlying  cities  of  that  island 
which  experienced  the  weight  of  the  hand  of  the  kings  of  Nineveh, 

1  Battle  of  Salamis,  480  B.  c. ;   siege  of  Constantinople  by  Chosroes  of  Persia, 
620  A.D. 

119 


120  GREECE 

Circa  625  B.C. 

yet  the  power  and  wealth  of  Assyria  were  well  known  to  the  Greek. 
Wild  tales  of  the  all-conquering  "  Ninus  "  ^  and  the  luxurious  and 
overweening  "  Sardanapalus  "  have  been  preserved  to  attest  the 
impression  which  the  kings  of  Asshur  left  on  the  minds  of  their 
Hellenic  contemporaries.  At  last,  in  the  fourth  quarter  of  the 
seventh  century,  the  doom  of  Nineveh  came.  A  long  series  of  suc- 
cessful or  partially  successful  revolts  began  to  strip  Assyria  of  her 
outlying  provinces,  and  to  wear  down  the  strength  of  her  armies. 
Revolted  vassals  joined  with  wild  tribes  from  the  north  to  attack 
the  failing  monarchy,  and  Nineveh  collapsed  under  the  weight  of 
their  onset.  The  details  are  lost:  we  only  know  of  the  Greek 
legends  which  tell  how  the  last  king  of  Assyria,  when  his  enemies 
had  burst  within  the  wall,  collected  his  treasures  and  his  gods,  his 
wives  and  his  sons,  on  a  vast  pyre  in  the  court  of  his  palace,  and 
gave  himself  and  them  to  the  flames,  to  balk  the  victors  of  their 
spoil.  Of  an  Oriental  despot,  mad  with  rage  and  despair,  such  a 
tale  need  not  be  false;  but,  be  it  false  or  true,  we  know  that  in 
some  not  less  dreadful  scene  of  blood  and  fire  the  Assyrian  monarchy 
passed  away. 

Two  princes  had  led  the  attack  on  Nineveh,  and  profited  by 
its  fall.  Nabopolassar,  the  rebel  viceroy  of  Babylon,  annexed  the 
southern  and  western  dominions  of  Assyria.  Cyaxares,  King  of 
the  Medes,  seized  the  northern  and  eastern  provinces.  Of  Nabo- 
polassar and  his  more  famous  son,  Nebuchadnezzar,  we  need  not 
speak  at  length.  Their  victories  and  conquests  in  Syria,  Elam,  and 
Egypt  have  no  bearing  on  our  history. 

With  the  Medes  it  is  otherwise.  They  were  a  new  race  and  a 
new  kingdom,  but  they  are  important  to  us  as  being  the  real 
founders  of  that  empire — "  Persian,"  as  we  call  it,  though  the 
earlier  Greeks  knew  it  better  as  "  Median  " — which  came  into  such 
violent  contact  with  the  Hellenes.  The  Medes  were  a  portion  of 
that  great  body  of  Aryan  tribes  which  migrated  from  the  north- 
east, out  of  the  land  which  was  then  known  as  Bactria,  towards 
the  borders  of  the  Assyrian  kingdom.  Various  allied  clans  of  this 
race  scattered  themselves  over  the  whole  of  the  great  table-land  of 
Iran,  from  the  Caspian  to  the  Indian  Ocean.  In  some  districts 
they  drove  out  the  previous  inhabitants — Turanian  tribes  of  low 

*  "  Ninus  "  is  an  eponymous  hero  manufactured  for  the  Ninevites  on  the  or- 
dinary Greek  system.  "  Sardanapalus  "  is  a  corruption  of  the  real  name  Assur- 
bani-pal. 


CYRUS    AND    DARIUS 


121 


Circa  625  B.C. 


civilization — in  others  they  dwelt  among  them;  in  others,  again, 
they  mixed  with  them.  The  most  southern  section  of  these  in- 
vaders were  the  tribes  of  the  Persians,  over  whom  reigned  a  house 
descended  from  a  certain  unknown  king  Achaemenes.  The  more 
northern  clans  were  the  Medas,  who  had  dwelt  apart  in  weakness 


and  disunion  till  Cyaxares,  in  the  third  quarter  of  the  seventh 
century,  united  them  into  a  compact  monarchy.  The  Medes  were 
much  more  mixed  with  the  previous  inhabitants  of  the  land  than 
were  the  Persians,  and  had  adopted  in  a  large  measure  the  customs 
and  religion  of  their  predecessors.  The  Persians,  a  more  vigorous 
but  ruder  and  less  numerous  race,  kept  themselves  free  from  such 
intermixture  in  their  mountainous  homes  on  the  coast  of  the 
Erythraean  Sea.  They  were  a  poor  and  hardy  race,  rough  leather- 
clad  shepherds  and  plowmen,  who  dwelt  in  a  land  which  seemed 
scanty  and  rugged  to  the  richer  inhabitants  of  the  plains.  The  ten 
tribes  which  composed  the  nation  dwelt  apart,  only  connected  by 
a  loose  subjection  to  the  house  of  the  Achaemenidae,  and  by  the 
national  religion  which  they  had  brought  with  them  from  Bactria. 
While  the  common  ancestors  of  Medes  and  Persians  were  still 
dwelling  by  the  Oxus,  they  had  adopted  a  religion  called  Zoro- 
astrianism,  from  the  name  of  Zoroaster  the  great  sage  and  preacher 
who  is  said  to  have  converted  his  countrymen  to  it.     This  faith  is 


122  GREECE 

549    B.C. 

a  "  dualistic  "  system,  which  refers  all  the  changes  of  the  world, 
moral  and  physical,  to  the  constant  and  unending  struggle  of  two 
opposing  deities.  Ornuizd,  "  the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  light,  the 
very  great  and  very  good,  the  lord  of  perfection  and  activity,  of 
intelligence,  growth,  and  beauty,"  was  the  creator  of  the  universe, 
and  endeavors  to  rule  it  with  wisdom  and  benevolence.  But  his 
efforts  are  being  continually  hampered  by  the  evil  god  Ahriman, 
"  the  spirit  of  darkness  and  malice,  of  crime,  sin,  and  ugliness." 
The  whole  life  of  a  pious  Persian  was  a  crusade  against  Ahriman 
and  all  his  works,  and  an  endeavor  to  work  out  the  purpose  of 
Ormuzd,  to  whom  sacrifice  was  made,  not  in  temples  or  shrines, 
but  on  lofty  heights,  where  a  sacred  fire  was  kept  ever  burning  in 
honor  of  the  god  of  light.  The  ]Medes  had  perverted  Zoro- 
astrianism,  by  endeavoring  to  conciliate  Ahriman  and  his  angels 
rather  than  to  help  Ormuzd ;  and  their  religion  had  thus  become  a 
kind  of  "  devil-worship,"  in  which  their  priests,  the  Magians,  pre- 
tended to  ward  off  the  spirits  of  evil  by  sacrifices  and  incantations. 

The  empire  which  Cyaxares  the  Mede  had  founded  after  the 
fall  of  Nineveh  stretched  from  the  confines  of  Bactria  to  the  Lydian 
frontier  on  the  Halys,  where  it  had  been  fixed  since  the  indecisive 
struggle  with  King  Alyattes,  Both  Cyaxares  and  his  contemporary 
Nebuchadnezzar,  the  great  King  of  Babylon,  had  long  been  dead 
when  a  new  conqueror  arose  to  shatter  both  their  empires.  Be- 
tween Babylonia  and  Persia  lay  the  land  of  Elam,  which  had  long 
been  a  vassal  state  to  its  western  neighbor.  But  after  the  death  of 
Nebuchadnezzar  it  had  apparently  fallen  into  subjection  to  the 
Medes,  under  Astyages,  the  successor  of  Cyaxares.  Elam  was 
now  ruled  by  a  prince  of  the  house  of  Achaemenidae,  not  sprung 
from  the  same  line  as  reigned  in  Persia,  but  from  a  family  which 
claimed  cousinship  with  the  older  branch,  and  must  have  migrated 
into  Elam  from  Persia  a  few  generations  back.  Cyrus,  "  son  of 
Cambyses,  son  of  Cyrus,  son  of  Tei'spes,  son  of  Achaemenes,  of 
the  ancient  seed-royal,"  now  dwelt  at  Susa,  and  reigned  as  a  vassal 
of  Astyages  the  Mede. 

So  many  legends  have  grovrn  up  round  the  name  of  Cyrus 
that  it  is  disappointing  to  remember  how  little  is  really  known  of 
him.  The  Greeks  believed  that  he  was  the  grandchild  of  Astyages 
the  Mede,  by  a  daughter  who  had  been  married  to  a  Persian  of 
middle  rank,  in  order  to  avert  a  prophecy  that  threatened  harm  to 
the  Median  king  from  an  over-powerful  grandson.     But  we  know 


CYRUS    AND    DARIUS  123 

549  B.C. 

that  Cambyses,  the  father  of  Cyrus,  was  a  reigning  king,  and 
have  no  proof  that  any  relationship  existed  between  Cyrus  and 
Astyages. 

In  549  B.C.  Media  and  Babylon  were  at  war,  when  the  King 
of  Elam  suddenly  attacked  his  suzerain  from  the  rear.  Astyages 
was  defeated  in  battle,  after  which  his  army  revolted,  put  their 
master  in  bonds,  and  delivered  him  up  to  Cyrus.  Apparently  the 
fact  that  the  conqueror  was  an  Aryan  of  the  royal  blood,  and  of 
a  race  nearly  allied  to  themselves,  inclined  the  Medes  to  submission. 
They  became  the  followers  rather  than  the  subjects  of  Cyrus,  and 
the  transference  of  the  seat  of  empire  from  Median  Ecbatana  to 
Elamite  Susa  was  well-nigh  the  only  mark  of  the  change  which  had 
taken  place.  The  Greeks  saw  so  little  difference  that  they  continued 
to  call  the  great  Asiastic  power  Median,  as  though  Astyages  had 
still  been  on  the  throne. 

After  his  first  victory  Cyrus  received  homage  from  the  vassal 
kings  who  had  served  the  Mede,  including  his  own  relatives  in 
Persia.  Then  he  turned  against  nations  whom  the  Mede  had  left 
unconquered.  For  twenty  years  he  was  continually  passing  from 
west  to  east  and  from  east  to  west  in  his  career  of  conquest,  and 
seldom  did  he  fail  to  add  to  his  empire  the  district  against  which  he 
marched. 

The  dangerous  power  which  Cyrus  had  built  up  brought  about 
an  alliance  between  the  three  states  who  were  most  likely  to  suffer 
from  his  growing  strength.  Croesus  of  Lydia  joined  to  himself 
Nabonadius  of  Babylon  and  Amasis  of  Egypt,  who  in  a  common 
fear  suspended  the  incessant  wars  which  had  raged  between  their 
empires  since  the  fall  of  Nineveh.  Besides  his  two  royal  confede- 
rates, Croesus  is  said  to  have  hoped  to  enlist  the  Spartans  in  his 
cause,  as  he  was  their  good  friend  and  ally.  But  whether  it  be  true 
or  not  that  he  reckoned  on  Greek  troops  to  aid  his  army,  it  is 
certain  that  he  went  to  war  buoyed  up  by  promises  of  victory  from 
Greek  oracles.  His  lavish  gifts  of  massive  gold  ingots  and  vessels 
remained  long  after  at  Delphi,  to  show  the  honor  in  which  he 
held  the  gods  of  the  West,  and  the  importance  which  he  attached 
to  their  advice.  Apollo,  we  are  told,  answered,  when  consulted  by 
the  Lydian  ambassadors,  that  "  Croesus,  if  he  crossed  the  Halys, 
would  destroy  a  great  empire."  Forgetting  that  the  cautiously 
worded  oracle  would  apply  to  his  own  realm  as  much  as  to  that  of 
Cyrus,  the  Lydian  king  declared  war,  and  invaded  Cappadocia  at 


124<  GREECE 

546  B.C. 

the  head  of  the  forces  of  the  I.ydians  and  all  the  tribes  subject  to 
him  between  the  Halys  and  the  Aegean  (546  B.C.). 

The  dominions  of  Cyrus  stretched  westward  so  as  to  cut  off 
Babylon  from  Lydia,  and  he  was  thus  able  to  prevent  his  two  chief 
enemies  from  joining.  The  Egyptians  were  too  far  off  to  be 
promptly  on  the  scene,  and  Croesus  alone  had  to  face  the  brunt  of 
the  contest.  Neglecting  Nabonadius  for  the  moment,  Cyrus  threw 
himself  on  the  Lydians.  In  the  Cappadocian  district  of  Pteria  the 
two  armies  fought  a  bloody  but  indecisive  combat,  which  recalled 
the  similar  engagement  when  Cyaxares  and  Alyattes  had  met  on 
the  same  spot  some  sixty  years  earlier.  The  troops  of  Cyrus 
retired  a  few  miles  after  the  battle,  and  Croesus,  who  had  suffered 
too  heavily  to  pursue  them,  concluded  that  the  campaign  was  over. 
Accordingly  he  dismissed  his  allies  and  marched  home,  determined 
to  raise  a  larger  army  before  committing  himself  again  to  the 
chances  of  war.  But  Cyrus,  though  checked,  was  not  beaten. 
When  he  heard  of  the  break-up  of  the  Lydian  armament,  he  turned 
on  his  way  and  followed  hard  on  the  steps  of  Croesus.  So  rapidly 
did  he  pursue,  that  his  enemy  was  compelled  to  turn  to  fight  in  front 
of  his  capital,  the  strong  fortress  of  Sardis,  long  ere  the  dispersed 
contingents  could  rejoin  him.  Croesus,  crushed  by  numbers,  was 
routed  and  compelled  to  shut  himself  up  in  Sardis,  which  fell  quite 
unexpectedly  before  a  sudden  assault,  only  fourteen  days  after  tlie 
siege  had  commenced.  Greek  legend  had  much  to  say  of  the  fate 
of  Croesus ;  it  told  how  the  victor  condemned  him  to  death  by  fire, 
and  how,  as  the  flames  began  to  mount,  Cyrus  reflected  on  the 
vicissitudes  of  human  fortune,  and  repented  of  his  cruel  orders. 
When  no  human  intervention  could  have  stayed  the  fire,  Apollo,  it 
was  said,  interfered  to  save  the  man  who  had  so  richly  endowed  his 
temple  at  Delphi,  and  a  miraculous  shower  of  rain  extinguished  the 
blazing  pyre,  and  enabled  Cyrus  to  show  a  tardy  clemency  towards 
his  prisoner. 

The  spectacle  of  a  powerful  and  wealthy  state  dashed  down  in 
the  midst  of  its  glory  profoundly  affected  the  mind  of  the  Greeks. 
No  such  catastrophe  had  previously  taken  place  so  closely  before 
their  eyes,  or  ended  with  such  dramatic  suddenness.  Their  theory 
of  Nemesis,  the  inevitable  retribution  which  follows  on  pride  and 
over-prosperity,  found  in  Croesus  a  striking  illustration.  A 
hundred  tales  were  framed  to  show  how  his  self-confidence,  his 
wealth  and  courage,  liberality  and  ambition,  contrasted  with  his 


CYRUS    AND    DARIUS  1^5 

541  B.C. 

sudden  and  complete  fall.  Thus  the  outlines  of  his  real  character 
and  the  details  of  his  real  fate  come  down  to  us  blurred  and  exag- 
gerated, though  still  recognizable,  through  the  haze  of  legend  which 
surrounded  him. 

The  vanishing  of  the  Lydian  empire  brought  the  Greeks  of 
Ionia  and  Aeolis  into  direct  relations  with  Cyrus.  The  Milesians 
at  once  did  homage  to  him,  accepting  the  same  semi-independent 
position  which  they  had  already  enjoyed  under  Croesus.  The 
other  states  of  the  coast  made  a  stand,  and  endeavored  to  win 
back  their  freedom.  Although  the  Lacedaemonians  refused  them 
help,  they  found  allies  in  the  warlike  Carians  and  Lycians,  and  in 
Pactyas,  a  Lydian  chief  who  endeavored  to  rouse  his  newly  con- 
quered countrymen  to  revolt.  Cyrus,  who  was  set  on  greater 
projects  than  the  subjection  of  a  few  rebellious  towns,  turned  off  to 
subdue  his  Eastern  enemies,  and  left  behind  him  an  army,  under  a 
Median  noble  named  Mazares,  to  complete  the  conquest  of  Asia 
Minor.  This  chief  put  down  the  Lydian  revolt,  and  then  moving 
against  the  lonians  captured  and  sacked  Priene,  and  wasted  the 
whole  plain  of  the  Maeander.  At  this  juncture  he  died,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Harpagus,  another  Mede,  who  had  played  a  great 
part  in  the  deposition  of  Astyages,  and  was  much  trusted  by  Cyrus. 
Harpagus  besieged  Phocaea  and  Teos,  whose  inhabitants,  when 
their  position  began  to  grow  desperate,  escaped  by  sea,  and  betook 
themselves  to  distant  shores  beyond  the  reach  of  the  Great  King's 
arm.  The  Teians  migrated  to  Abdera  in  Thrace,  which  ere  long 
became  the  largest  town  on  the  north  shore  of  the  Aegean.  The 
Phocaeans,  sailing  into  the  far  West,  landed  at  Alalia,  a  harbor 
in  Corsica,  and  endeavored  to  deal  with  that  island  as  their  Ionic 
kinsmen,  two  hundred  years  before,  had  dealt  with  Sicily.  But 
Alalia  was  not  to  be  to  Corsica  what  Naxos  had  been  to  the  larger 
island.  After  a  hopeless  struggle  of  five  years  with  the  united 
navies  of  Carthage  and  Etruria,  the  Phocaeans  were  constrained  to 
abandon  their  new  settlement.  Some  of  them  sailed  north  to  join 
the  old  Phocaean  colony  of  Massilia  in  Gaul,  which  grew  largely 
in  importance  from  this  sudden  increase  of  population.  The  rest 
founded  the  new  town  of  Hyele  (Velia)  on  the  Lucanian  coast, 
south  of  Poseidonia. 

The  remaining  Greek  cities  of  Asia  showed  no  such  desperate 
determination  to  avoid  the  Persian  yoke.  After  a  certain  amount 
of  ill-combined  resistance,  they  opened  their  gates  to  Harpagus. 


126  GREECE 

538   B.C. 

The  islanders  were  no  less  impressed  with  the  futihty  of  further 
resistance  than  the  inhabitants  of  the  mainland,  and  Lesbos  and 
Chios,  as  well  as  Ephesus  and  Smyrna,  acknowledged  Cyrus  as 
their  suzerain.  Polycrates,  tyrant  of  Samos,  alone  maintained  his 
independence;  he  owned  the  largest  navy  on  the  eastern  shore  of 
the  Aegean,  and  as  the  Persian  king  had  not  yet  become  master  of 
a  fleet,  hoped  to  retain  his  island  and  his  "  thalassocracy  "  undis- 
turbed. His  independence  was  no  great  benefit  to  Hellas,  for  his 
piratical  galleys  kept  the  whole  eastern  Aegean  in  awe,  and  had 
succeeded  to  the  old  maritime  predominance  of  Miletus.  Polycrates 
lived  and  flourished  by  plunder.  He  was  wont  to  say  that  "  he 
made  a  rule  to  rob  everyone  alike,  because  he  found  that  his  friends 
were  more  grateful  on  getting  their  stolen  wealth  back  than  they 
ever  w^ould  have  been  if  it  had  remained  undisturbed  in  their 
possession." 

Harpagus  did  not  impose  onerous  terms  on  the  Greeks  of  Asia. 
They  were  bound  to  pay  an  annual  tribute,  and  to  supply  armed 
contingents  when  the  king  called  for  them,  but  the  internal  govern- 
ments of  their  cities  were  left  unmolested.  The  state  where  a  tyrant 
ruled  remained  under  that  tyrant's  power;  democracies  were  still 
democratic,  and  oligarchies  no  less  oligarchic  than  in  the  days  of 
full  autonomy. 

Aided  by  Ionian  and  Aeolian  troops,  Harpagus  subdued  the 
Greeks  of  Doris,  and  their  barbarian  neighbors,  the  peoples  of  Caria 
and  Lycia.  Meanwhile  Cyrus  himself  was  pushing  his  fortunes 
in  Upper  Asia,  and  in  a  series  of  campaigns  brought  his  frontier  up 
to  India  and  the  borders  of  the  great  central  plateau  of  the  Pamir. 
He  even  penetrated  to  the  far  northeast,  and  subdued  many  of  the 
wild  Sacae,  who  dwelt  in  the  extreme  limits  of  Tartary.  In  538 
B.C.  he  turned  back  again  to  deliver  an  attack  on  Babylon.  Cross- 
ing the  Tigris,  he  defeated  King  Nabonadius  in  a  pitched  battle; 
a  few  days  later  Sippara,  the  second  town  in  the  kingdom,  fell  by 
treachery.  Then  Babylon  itself  yielded  without  fighting,  and  its 
empire  was  at  an  end.  The  king,  who  fled  with  the  remnant  of 
his  army,  was  pursued  and  taken  prisoner,  and  Cyrus  reigned  with 
undisputed  authority  in  Chaldaea,  Mesopotamia,  and  Syria, 

It  might  now  have  appeared  natural  for  Cyrus  to  turn  his 
arms  against  Egypt,  the  last  surviving  power  of  those  which  had 
allied  themselves  against  him  in  546  B.C.  But  of  such  an  endeavor 
we  hear  nothing.      On  the  contrary,  the  remaining  nine  years  of 


CYRUS    AND    DARIUS  127 

529-521    B.C. 

Cyrus's  life  and  reign  would  seem  to  have  been  comparatively  peace- 
ful. It  is  certain,  however,  that  he  continued  to  extend  his  borders 
eastward,  and  occupied  the  upper  valley  of  the  Indus,  and  wide 
tracts  beyond  the  river  Oxus,  in  the  region  of  Sogdiana  and 
Chorasmia.  At  last,  in  529  B.C.,  he  led  an  attack  on  the  Massa- 
getae,  a  nomad  tribe  who  dwelt  beyond  Sogdiana,  in  what  is  now 
the  south  of  Siberia.  While  engaged  in  battle  with  this  race 
the  old  king  was  slain.  His  army  turned  back  and  brought  his 
body  to  be  buried  at  Pasargadae,  among  the  sepulchers  of  the 
royal  house  of  Achaemenes. 

Cyrus  was  a  favorable  example  of  a  great  Oriental  conqueror. 
That  he  was  brave,  persevering,  and  full  of  resource,  is  evident ;  it 
is  even  more  to  his  credit  that  we  find  connected  with  his  name 
none  of  those  A\4iolesale  acts  of  cruelty  and  massacre  which  mark 
the  career  of  a  Nebuchadnezzar  or  an  Attila.  But  he  would  seem 
to  have  been  more  of  a  general  than  an  administrator.  He  could 
form  the  motley  tribes  of  Asia  into  a  conquering  army,  but  he  made 
no  attempt  to  bind  them  into  an  organized  empire.  Accordingly 
disruptive  tendencies  lurked  in  every  province,  which  only  awaited 
the  removal  of  the  master's  hand  to  display  themselves  in  full 
vigor.  Cyrus,  like  his  Median  kinsmen,  had  not  remained  faith- 
ful to  the  ancient  faith  of  his  race;  he  was  not  a  wholehearted 
worshiper  of  Ormuzd,  but  had  learned  from  his  Elamite  subjects  to 
worship  other  gods,  and  notably  Merodach,  the  patron  of  Babylon, 
in  whose  honor  he  was  ever  zealous. 

Cyrus  was  succeeded  by  his  son  Cambyses,  a  cruel  and  reckless 
but  strong-handed  tyrant,  whose  rule  contrasted  most  unfavorably 
with  that  of  his  father.  His  reign  of  eight  years  (529-521  B.C.) 
is  mainly  memorable  for  the  conquest  of  Egypt  and  its  depend- 
encies. Phoenicia  and  Cyprus  submitted  to  him  when  he  marched 
against  Amasis,  the  Egyptian  king.  He  was  therefore  able  to 
bring  up  a  strong  fleet  of  Phoenician,  Cypriot,  and  Ionian  vessels 
to  aid  his  land  army.  In  a  decisive  battle  at  Pelusium  he  over- 
threw Psammetichus  II.,  who  had  just  succeeded  his  father  Amasis. 
Many  thousands  of  Greek  mercenaries  had  been  serving  in  the 
ranks  of  the  Egyptians,  and  the  fact  that  they  had  proved  utterly 
unable  to  resist  the  troops  of  Cambyses  made  a  deep  and  discourag- 
ing impression  on  the  mind  of  the  Hellenes  of  Europe,  who  feared 
ere  long  to  suffer  the  fate  of  their  Asiatic  brethren.  Egypt  needed 
no  second  blow,  and  its  subjection  was  followed  by  that  of  the 


128  GREECE 

529-521    B.C. 

Libyans  and  their  neighbors,  the  Greek  colonists  of  Cyrene  and 
Barca. 

Cambyses  tarried  long  in  Egypt,  winning  an  unenviable  repu- 
tation. He  may  have  conciliated  the  Egyptians  to  a  certain  extent 
by  the  enthusiastic  w^orship  which  he  gave  their  gods,  for  his 
predilection  towards  polytheism  was  no  less  marked  than  that  of 
his  father  had  been.^  But  among  his  own  subjects  he  grew  to  be 
hated  more  and  more.  He  wasted  his  soldiery  in  distant  expedi- 
tions of  the  maddest  character,  while  his  savage  and  suspicious 
treatment  of  his  nobles  and  courtiers,  whose  lives  he  was  continually 
taking  on  the  pretext  of  imaginary  treasons,  filled  his  palace  with 
enemies. 

Cyrus  had  left  a  son  named  Bardes,"*  a  whole-brother  to 
Cambyses,  who  was  regarded  with  hatred  by  the  young  king.  Be- 
fore starting  on  his  Egyptian  expedition  Cambyses  had  his  brother 
secretly  slain.  This  was  not  generally  known,  and  an  ambitious 
Magian  priest  named  Gomates,  who  chanced  to  resemble  the 
murdered  prince,  resolved  to  take  advantage  of  the  secret  crime. 
Knowing  that  Cambyses  was  generally  detested,  he  gave  himself 
out  to  be  the  missing  Bardes,  and  claimed  the  throne.  A  general 
rising  in  his  favor  took  place  in  Persia  Media  and  all  the  neigh- 
boring provinces.  Cambyses  started  off  to  suppress  it,  but  while 
passing  through  Syria  was  so  discouraged  at  the  universality  of  the 
revolt  that  he  committed  suicide  (521  B.C.). 

The  Magian  impostor  now  reigned  for  a  few  months  under  the 
name  of  Bardes.  But  his  suspicious  behavior,  and  the  anxiety 
with  which  he  proceeded  to  seek  out  and  slay  all  who  had  known 
the  prince  whom  he  personated,  provoked  remark.  Then  Darius, 
son  of  Hystaspes,  a  prince  of  the  royal  house  of  Persia,  with 
only  six  followers  to  back  him,  sought  out  the  impostor,  and  slew 
him  in  the  fort  of  Sichtachotes,  by  a  sudden  attack  in  the 
night-time. 

Darius  was  not  of  that  branch  of  the  house  of  Achaemenes 
which  had  ruled  in  Elam,  and  had  produced  Cyrus  and  Cambyses. 
His  progenitors  had  borne  sway  in  Persia  Proper,  and  had  been 
distinct  for  three  generations  from  the  Elamite  branch  of  the 
family.     It   was    not   unnatural,    therefore,    that    the    subjects    of 

3  All  the  stories  about  Cambyses's  crusade  against  the  Egyptian  gods  seem  to 
be  mere   inventions. 

*  The  Greeks  called  him  Smerdis. 


CYRUS    AND    DARIUS  1^9 

520-516  B.C. 

Cambyses  refused  to  see  in  Darius  their  late  master's  heir.  The 
whole  empire  broke  up  in  hopeless  anarchy.  Babylon  and  Media 
asserted  their  independence  under  princes  who  claimed  to  represent 
the  lines  of  Nabonadius  and  Cyaxares.  Armenia,  Parthia,  Sar- 
angia,  and  well-nigh  all  the  provinces  of  the  East  followed  their 
example.  Where  a  native  rebellion  did  not  occur,  the  governors 
showed  signs  of  wishing  to  make  themselves  as  little  dependent  as 
possible  on  the  central  power.  But  Darius  was  a  man  of  genius — 
a  greater  than  Cyrus  himself;  for  in  the  East  it  has  always  been 
far  more  easy  to  build  up  a  new  empire  than  to  reconstruct  an  old 
one  which  has  gone  to  pieces.  By  ceaseless  activity  and  long- 
continued  struggles  he  succeeded  in  crushing  the  eight  pretenders 
who  had  dismembered  the  eastern  provinces,  and  in  removing  or 
destroying  the  disobedient  satraps.  Among  Darius's  victims  of 
the  second  class  was  Oroetes,  governor  of  Lydia,  who  had  during 
the  anarchy  played  a  foul  trick  on  Polycrates,  the  tyrant  of  Samos. 
Polycrates  was  a  keen  lover  of  money,  and  held  no  act  mean  and 
undignified  which  filled  his  treasury.  Oroetes  sent  word  to  him 
that  he  was  about  to  fly  from  the  wrath  of  his  master,  and  besought 
him  to  take  his  money  and  himself  across  to  safety  in  Samos. 
When  Polycrates  came  to  meet  the  supposed  wealthy  fugitive  on 
the  shore  of  the  mainland  he  was  kidnaped,  taken  inland,  and 
crucified.  Thus  ignominiously  ended  the  man  whose  fleet  swayed 
the  Aegean,  who  had  repelled  the  Lacedaemonians,  preserved  his 
independence  from  Cyrus,  and  won  a  reputation  for  wealth  second 
only  to  that  of  Croesus  himself  (  ?  520  B.C.). 

His  realm  once  mastered,  Darius  set  to  work  to  reorganize  it 
(516  B.C.).  As  recast  by  him,  it  can  now  for  the  first  time  be 
called  with  accuracy  the  "  Persian  Empire,"  for  his  predecessors 
had  not  been  kings  of  Persia,  nor  had  they  professed  the  national 
faith  of  that  country.  Darius  was  not  only  hereditary  chief  of 
Persia,  but  also  a  zealous  Zoroastrian,  and  a  fanatical  foe  to  the  de- 
based and  heretical  creed  of  the  ]\Iedes  and  their  Alagi.  He  called  it 
"  the  Lie,"  and  traced  all  the  evils  through  which  the  empire  had 
passed  to  its  prevalence.  "  All  that  I  have  done,"  he  wrote,  "  I 
have  done  by  the  help  of  Ormuzd ;  and  Ormuzd  brought  me  help 
because  I  was  not  heretical,  nor  a  believer  in  the  Lie,  nor  a  tyrant." 
But  although  he  broke  with  the  religious  traditions  of  his  prede- 
cessors and  recast  their  administrative  system,  Darius  was  in  every 
true  sense  their  heir.     He  continued  to  make  Susa,  the  Elamite 


130  GREECE 

520-516  B.C. 

home  of  Cyrus,  his  capital,  and  did  not  remove  his  seat  to  his  native 
PersepoHs  or  Pasargadae. 

The  system  on  which  Darius  reorganized  his  empire  w^as  that 
of  satrapies.  Instead  of  allowing  his  dominions  to  remain  a 
heterogeneous  mass  of  vassal  states  and  fully  subjected  districts, 
he  distributed  the  whole  into  twenty-three  provinces,  each  governed 
by  a  satrap,  or  civil  governor,  a  military  commander,  and  a  royal 
secretary.  The  satrap  had  full  authority  in  all  things  save  the 
disposition  of  the  troops  in  his  territory,  the  one  privilege  which 
could  have  rendered  him  a  dangerous  subject.  The  general  re- 
ceived his  orders  from  the  king,  but  had  to  look  for  the  pay  and 
maintenance  of  his  troops  to  the  satrap.  The  secretary  was  specially 
charged  with  the  duty  of  informing  the  king  of  the  conduct  of  his 
two  colleagues,  and  all  the  orders  of  the  satrap  had  to  pass  through 
his  hands.  The  three  rival  powers  created  a  balance  which  left 
all  things  ultimately  depending  on  the  king,  if  only  the  king  had 
the  industry  and  mental  grasp  required  to  keep  the  system  in  order 
The  vassal  states  of  the  empire  were  now  placed  directly  under  the 
satrap,  and  though  they  retained  their  internal  institutions,  were 
compelled  to  obey  him  with  as  much  punctuality  as  if  he  had  been 
the  king  himself.  Under  Darius's  new  system  the  empire  began  to 
flourish  in  an  unexampled  manner ;  his  care  was  especially  rewarded 
by  the  rapid  increase  of  his  revenue — a  fact  which  so  pleased  him 
that  the  Persians  observed  that  "  Cyrus  had  the  soul  of  a  father, 
Cambyses  that  of  a  master,  Darius  that  of  a  shopkeeper." 


Chapter   XV 

DARIUS    AND    THE    GREEKS— THE    IONIAN    REVOLT, 

510-492    B.C. 

WHEN  Darius  had  reorganized  his  empire  and  estabhshed 
peace  and  quietness  within  it,  he  showed  himself 
no  less  enamored  of  the  dehghts  of  foreign  conquest 
than  his  predecessors.  North  and  south  of  his  dominions 
lay  only  deserts  and  steppes,  or  tracts  of  sea.  But  to  the  east 
and  west  were  lands  worth  conquering.  Darius's  first  foreign 
expeditions  were  pushed  in  the  direction  of  India ;  he  not  only 
subdued  the  whole  "  land  of  the  five  rivers,"  which  we  now  call 
the  Punjab,  but  built  a  fleet  on  the  Upper  Indus,  and  sent  it  down 
to  the  mouth  of  that  river,  and  along  the  shores  of  the  Erythraean 
Sea  and  the  coast  of  Arabia,  right  round  to  Suez.  His  admiral, 
the  Greek  Scylax  of  Caryanda,  wrote  an  account  of  this  adventu- 
rous voyage. 

In  about  510  B.C.,  however,  Darius  turned  his  attention  to  the 
west,  and  the  Greeks  of  Hellas  heard  with  terror  that  an  expedition 
was  preparing  to  cross  the  water  into  Europe.  Samos,  the  last 
independent  Greek  island  ofT  the  coast  of  Asia,  had  already  fallen 
into  Darius's  hands,  the  tyrant  Maeandrius,  who  had  succeeded  the 
murdered  Polycrates,  being  in  no  condition  to  withstand  the  Persian 
attack.  But,  on  first  crossing  the  Bosphorus,  Darius  set  himself 
a  more  unprofitable  task  than  the  conquest  of  Hellas.  After  receiv- 
ing the  homage  of  the  Greek  towns  of  the  coast  and  the  numerous 
Thracian  tribes  in  the  valley  of  the  Hebrus,  the  king  did  not  proceed 
westward  in  the  direction  of  Macedon  and  Thessaly,  but  set  his 
face  towards  the  wild  north.  He  crossed  the  Balkans  and  arrived 
at  the  Danube.  There  he  moored  his  fleet,  which  had  followed  him 
up  the  coast,  in  the  form  of  a  bridge  of  boats,  and  threw  his  army 
across  it  into  the  melancholy  treeless  waste  of  the  South  Russian 
steppes.  The  Scythians  were  the  foe  at  whom  he  struck,  moved,  it 
is  said,  by  a  fanciful  desire  to  pay  off  on  them  the  insult  of 
invasion  which  they  had  inflicted  on  Asia  in  the  reign  of  Cyaxares 
the  Mede.  The  nomad  horsemen  of  the  steppes  made  no  attempt 
to  withstand  the  great  king  in  battle.     They  drove  off  their  herds 

131 


13S  GREECE 

510  B.C. 

into  the  interior,  and  dogged  the  steps  of  the  Persian  army  without 
attacking  it.  For  more  than  two  months  Darius  marched  through 
a  desolate  land,  seeking  an  enemy  who  was  always  in  sight  but 
never  in  reach.  At  last  it  was  evident  that  nothmg  could  be 
done  against  the  Scythians ;  the  provisions  were  well-nigh  spent, 
the  strength  of  men  and  animals  was  giving  out,  and  Darius  gave 
the  signal  for  retreat.  The  Scythians  turned  and  followed  hard  on 
him,  picking  up  all  his  stragglers,  and  many  sick  whom  he  had  to 
abandon  on  the  way  for  want  of  transport.  Thus  the  king  returned 
to  the  Danube  without  any  great  disaster  such  as  has  attended 
other  invaders  of  the  Russian  plain,  but  disgusted  with  an  utterly 
fruitless  and  abortive  expedition. 

It  was  well  for  Darius  that  he  found  his  fleet,  with  its  stores  of 
provisions  and  material,  where  he  had  left  it.  When  his  absence 
had  been  so  long  protracted,  many  of  the  Greek  captains  of  the 
armament  schemed  to  abandon  their  post,  and  draw  off  the  fleet 
to  their  homes.  For  Darius,  of  whom  they  had  no  news,  might, 
for  all  they  knew,  have  perished  in  the  waste ;  and  if  not,  that  con- 
summation might  yet  befall  him  if  he  were  abandoned,  bridgeless 
and  foodless,  on  the  further  bank  of  the  impassable  river.  Milti- 
ades  the  Athenian,  tyrant  of  the  Thracian  Chersonese, — who  was 
one  of  the  new  vassals  acquired  by  Darius  since  he  crossed  the 
Hellespont, — was  set  on  sailing  away;  and  he  would  have  led  off 
the  whole  fleet  with  him  had  he  not  been  resisted  by  Histiaeus, 
tyrant  of  Miletus,  who  pointed  out  to  the  rulers  of  the  Ionian  towns 
that  their  interest  was  bound  up  with  that  of  their  master,  since  the 
fall  of  the  Persian  rule  would  infallibly  be  followed  by  a  democratic 
revolution  in  every  Greek  town.  The  bridge,  therefore,  was  pre- 
served, and  by  its  means  Darius  and  his  army  came  safely  back  into 
Thrace.  As  was  not  unnatural,  the  king  took  Histiaeus  into  high 
favor  and  made  him  one  of  his  council.  But  when  he  showed 
such  esteem  for  him  that  he  insisted  on  the  Greek  remaining  per- 
manently with  the  court  and  dwelling  at  Susa,  far  from  his  Milesian 
home,  Histiaeus  was  anything  rather  than  contented,  and  set  his 
wits  to  work  to  find  some  device  for  getting  himself  sent  down  to 
Ionia. 

When  he  returned  home  after  the  Scythian  expedition,  Darius 
left  Megabazus  with  eighty  thousand  men  in  Thrace,  to  complete 
the  conquest  of  that  country,  and  to  push  the  Persian  border  as  far 
westward  as  he  could.     The  general  proved  equal  to  the  task;  he 


IONIAN    REVOLT  133 

500  B.C. 

took  Periiithus  and  several  other  Greek  towns  which  refused  to 
open  their  gates,  subdued  the  Thracians  of  the  coast,  and  the 
Paeonians  of  the  lower  Strymon  valley,  and  reached  the  frontier  of 
Macedon.  Amyntas,  king  of  that  country,  made  an  endeavor  to 
preserve  his  freedom  by  force  of  arms.  He  did  homage  to  the 
King  of  Persia,  by  sending  him  the  symbolical  gifts  of  earth  and 
water.  A  tribute  was  imposed  on  Macedon,  and  by  its  submission 
the  Achaemenian  empire  was  brought  to  the  borders  of  Thessaly, 
the  frontier  state  of  Greece  Proper.  It  seemed  as  if  the  next 
campaign  must  commence  with  an  invasion  of  Hellas,  and  so 
successful  had  the  Persian  arms  been  in  their  attacks  on  Greek 
states,  that  no  one  was  free  from  the  fear  that  invasion  must 
necessarily  mean  conquest.  But  this  was  not  to  be;  nearly  a 
quarter  of  a  century  more  was  to  elapse  before  the  hosts  of  the 
Great  King  forced  the  passes  of  Tempe  and  descended  into  the 
Thessalian  Plain. 

While  Megabazus  was  threatening  the  Greeks  of  the  mainland, 
Artaphernes,  satrap  of  Lydia,  was  carrying  out  another  expedition 
against  the  Greeks  of  the  islands.  Sedition  was  raging  at  the 
time  in  Naxos,  the  largest  and  most  fertile  and  populous  of  the 
Cyclades.  Aristagoras — cousin  and  son-in-law  of  the  expatriated 
Histiaeus — who  now  ruled  at  Miletus  as  regent  for  his  kinsman, 
thought  to  gain  credit  with  his  Persian  masters  by  winning  the 
island  for  them.  He  persuaded  Darius  to  authorize  an  expedition 
against  Naxos,  and  received  command  of  a  fleet  of  two  hundred 
vessels  to  effect  the  conquest.  But  Artaphernes,  out  of  distrust  of 
the  Milesian,  procured  that  Megabates,  a  Persian  noble,  should  be 
given  him  as  second-in-command.  This  man,  like  Aristagoras 
himself,  was  of  fiery  temper,  and  a  hot  dispute  broke  out  between 
the  two  admirals  concerning  a  private  matter,  ere  yet  the  fleet  had 
sailed.  Megabates,  who  had  the  worst  of  it,  revenged  himself  by 
sending  secret  intelligence  of  the  expedition  to  Naxos,  and  when 
the  fleet  arrived  it  found  the  city  so  well  garrisoned  and  stored  that 
it  could  effect  nothing.  Aristagoras  had  staked  all  his  credit  at 
Sardis  and  Susa  on  the  success  of  the  expedition,  and  had  rendered 
himself  liable  for  large  debts  in  equipping  it.  He  was  at  his  wits' 
end,  and  ready  to  adopt  any  desperate  measure,  when  he  received  a 
message  from  Histiaeus,  who  implored  him  to  use  any  means  which 
would  lead  to  his  own  recall,  even  if  it  must  be  by  raising  revolt  in 
Ionia.     Of  this  message  a   quaint   tale   is  told.     It  is  said  that 


13A  GREECE 

500   B.C. 

Histiaeus  had  so  great  a  fear  that  spies  would  discover  any  letter 
which  he  sent  down  to  his  cousin,  that  he  had  the  incriminating 
words  tattooed  on  the  shaven  head  of  a  confidential  slave,  and  sent 
him  down  to  Miletus,  when  his  hair  had  grown  again,  with  the 
verbal  message  that  his  head  required  shaving. 

7'he  private  interests  of  these  two  despots  fell  in  with  the  bent 
of  popular  feeling,  which,  as  in  all  Greek  states  at  all  times,  was  set 
on  the  assertion  of  autonomy.  The  tyrant  had  been  the  element  in 
the  state  wdiich  represented  acquiescence  in  the  Persian  rule,  and 
when  he  declared  for  revolt  Miletus  followed  him.  Aristagoras 
did  more  than  revolt :  he  declared  that  he  laid  down  his  despotic 
power,  and  received  back  from  the  people  a  commission  as  a  con- 
stitutional magistrate.  Then  he  led  a  crusade  against  the  tyrants 
all  down  the  Ionic  coast :  in  every  town  when  the  Milesians  ap- 
peared, a  revolution  ensued,  and  the  local  ruler  was  slain  or 
banished.  Internal  freedom  as  well  as  external  was  proclaimed, 
and  the  revolt  for  the  moment  promised  well.  Of  the  Greeks  of 
Asia,  hardly  a  town,  from  Byzantium  to  the  Lycian  border,  refused 
to  proclaim  war  on  Persia.  Nor  was  this  the  full  measure  of 
success  obtained  by  Aristagoras  in  the  first  moments  of  his  activity. 
He  w'ent  over  in  person  to  the  western  shore  of  the  Aegean,  and 
began  to  stir  up  the  states  of  old  Greece.  In  Sparta  he  obtained 
no  success,  for  Spartan  ideas  were  well-nigh  bounded  by  the  limits 
of  Peloponnesus,  and  the  one  expedition  the  Lacedaemonians  had 
sent  out  by  sea,  that  directed  against  Polycrates  of  Samos,  had  not 
been  so  fortunate  as  to  encourage  them  to  repeat  the  experiment. 
King  Cleomenes  told  the  Milesian  that  "  he  was  mad  to  propose 
that  Sparta  should  attack  a  monarch  whose  residence  lay  at  Susa, 
three  months'  journey  from  the  sea,"  and  bade  him  depart  home. 
But  the  rising  maritime  state  of  Ionian  blood,  which  men  already 
esteemed  the  second  power  in  Greece,  gave  Aristagoras  a  very 
different  reception.  Touched  by  an  appeal  from  the  daughter- 
cities  to  the  mother-city  of  the  Ionian  race,  desirous,  too,  of  keeping 
the  Persian  employed  far  from  their  gates,  and  willing  to  prove 
the  efficiency  of  their  newly  formed  navy,  the  Athenians  readily 
listened  to  the  ex-tyrant,  and  granted  him  a  fleet  of  twenty  ships. 
To  these  the  Eretrians  added  five  more,  moved  by  their  old  fellow- 
ship in  arms  with  Miletus,  which  had  endured  since  the  remote 
days  of  the  great  Lelantine  war. 

The  moment  that  this  squadron  arrived  at  Ephesus,  the  troops 


IONIAN    REVOLT  135 

499    B.C. 

it  carried  were  joined  by  the  levies  of  the  neighboring  towns,  and 
executed  a  sudden  and  daring  attack  on  Sardis,  the  residence  of  the 
satrap  of  Lydia,  and  the  center  of  Persian  influence  in  Asia  Minor. 
The  Greeks  drove  Artaphernes  into  tlie  citadel,  and  sacked  and 
burned  the  town.  This  proved  a  fatal  mistake.  The  blow  told 
more  on  the  Lydians  than  on  their  Persian  masters.  Enraged  at 
the  plunder  of  their  chief  city,  and  especially  by  the  burning  of  the 
great  temple  of  Cybele,  the  holiest  sanctuary  of  the  land,  the  pro- 
vincials rose  in  arms  and  joined  Artaphernes.  When  the  Greeks 
commenced  their  retreat  to  the  sea,  the  whole  country-side  set  on 
them,  and  a  running  fight  ensued,  in  which  the  invaders  had  greatly 
the  worse.  Their  army  reached  its  ships  in  a  very  maltreated  con- 
dition, and  afterwards  dispersed,  while  the  Athenians  and  Eretrians 
returned  home  in  a  state  of  great  discouragement  (499  B.C.).  The 
chief  result  of  the  sack  of  Sardis  was  disastrous :  it  moved  the  court 
of  Susa  to  energetic  action.  Darius  redoubled  his  armaments,  and 
vowed  vengeance  not  only  on  his  revolted  subjects,  but  on  the  rash 
states  beyond  the  Aegean,  who  had  called  down  his  wrath  by 
interfering  in  the  affairs  of  Asia.  For  the  moment,  however,  be- 
fore the  full  meaning  of  the  events  was  known,  the  tidings  that 
the  capital  of  the  Lydian  satrapy  had  been  destroyed  told  in  favor 
of  the  lonians.  They  were  now  joined  by  most  of  the  Carian 
tribes,  and  by  all  the  cities  of  Cyprus,  Greek  and  barbarian,  with  the 
single  exception  of  the  Phoenician  colony  of  Amathus. 

Darius  now  called  out  against  the  rebels  not  only  the  disposable 
troops  of  all  the  western  satrapies,  but  the  full  naval  force  of  his 
Phoenician  and  Cilician  vassals.  Fleet  and  army  together  fell 
first  on  Cyprus,  the  most  isolated  and  outlying  of  the  revolted 
districts.  By  sea  the  lonians  and  Cypriots  defeated  the  Phoenician 
squadron ;  but  the  land  force,  which  the  beaten  fleet  had  previously 
thrown  on  shore,  completely  crushed  the  Cypriot  ami}',  and  the 
victory  was  followed  by  the  submission  of  the  island. 

Then  the  Persians  pressed  on  against  the  original  authors  of 
the  revolt.  Three  great  armies  came  down  from  the  central 
plateau  of  Asia  Minor,  and  began  to  harry  the  coast-land.  One 
sacked  city  after  city  along  the  Hellespont  and  Propontis;  the 
second  marched  from  Sardis  against  the  midmost  towns  of  the 
Greek  confederacy,  and  took  Cyme  and  Clazomenae,  while  most  of 
the  lonians  looked  on  in  helplessness,  afraid  to  venture  on  another 
land  campaign ;  the  third  entered  Caria,  but  after  two  victories  was 


136  GREECE 

497    B.C. 

annihilated  by  the  Carians  and  Milesians  at  the  battle  of  Pedasus. 
In  spite  of  this  isolated  success,  Aristagoras  now  lost  heart,  and 
despaired  of  the  enterprise  he  had  so  lightly  begun.  He  called  to- 
gether the  ]\Iilesians,  and  proposed  to  them  to  emigrate  in  a  body,  as 
their  kinsmen  of  Teos  and  Phocaea  had  done  forty  years  before. 
They  refused,  but  the  ex-tyrant  was  so  set  on  saving  his  own  neck 
that  he  got  together  his  personal  adherents  and  retainers  and 
deserted  his  country.  Sailing  to  the  Thracian  coast  with  the  in- 
tention of  establishing  a  new  settlement,  just  as  the  Teians  had  done 
at  the  neighboring  Abdera,  he  landed  at  Alyrcinus,  and  was 
promptly  cut  off  with  all  his  followers  by  the  savage  tribe  of  the 
Edonians,  on  whose  territory  he  had  trespassed  (497  B.C.). 

Such  was  the  condition  of  affairs  when  Histiaeus,  the  original 
instigator  of  the  revolt,  at  last  appeared  in  Ionia.  His  influence 
w^ith  Darius  had  not  proved  so  omnipotent  as  he  had  supposed,  nor 
had  the  great  king  sent  him  down  to  stay  the  movement  of  insur- 
rection the  moment  it  broke  out.  Three  weary  years  had  passed, 
and  the  backbone  of  the  rebellion  had  been  broken  when  Darius  at 
last  found  some  business  for  him  at  Sardis.  He  arrived  there  only 
to  be  taunted  with  his  schemes  and  their  failure  by  the  satrap 
Artaphernes.  "  You  stitched  this  shoe,"  said  the  Persian,  referring 
to  the  revolt,  "  and  Aristagoras  only  put  it  on."  Alarmed  at  the 
Persian's  knowledge  of  his  plans,  Histiaeus  escaped  to  Chios  and 
joined  the  rebels.  He  found  himself  deeply  suspected  as  an  ex- 
tyrant,  and  a  confidant  of  the  king.  No  city  offered  to  place  him 
in  the  position  of  command  for  which  he  had  hoped.  The  Chians 
imprisoned  him  for  a  time.  Miletus  refused  to  admit  her  old  master 
within  her  walls,  and  he  considered  himself  lucky  when  at  last  the 
Lesbians  gave  him  eight  ships,  and  allowed  him  to  sail  for  the 
Hellespont,  w^ith  a  commission  to  reorganize  the  revolt  in  the  towns 
which  had  gone  back  to  their  allegiance.  Instead  of  doing  so  he 
stationed  himself  at  Byzantium,  and  levied  extortionate  tolls  on 
the  merchant-ships  which  passed  through  the  Bosphorus,  without 
making  any  vigorous  attempt  to  attack  the  Persians. 

Meanwhile  the  end  of  the  war  drew  near.  Neglecting  the 
smaller  towns,  Artaphernes  drew  together  all  his  land  forces  for  an 
attack  on  Miletus,  the  heart  of  Ionia.  At  the  same  time  a  great 
Phoenician  fleet  rounded  the  Triopian  Cape,  and  cast  anchor  oppo- 
site the  mouth  of  the  Maeander.  From  the  nine  towns  which  yet 
kept  up  their  hearts  and  hoped  against  hope  for  the  retention  of 


IONIAN    REVOLT  137 

496  B.C. 

their  autonomy,  the  lonians  and  AeoHans  mustered  for  the  final 
conflict,  till  at  the  little  island  of  Lade,  in  front  of  Miletus,  three 
hundred  and  fifty-three  triremes  lay  moored  to  face  the  six  hundred 
vessels  of  the  barbarians.  It  is  greatly  to  the  discredit  of  the 
Athenians  that  not  a  single  ship  of  theirs  appeared  to  aid  their 
kinsmen  and  allies  in  their  death-struggle. 

The  confederate  states  placed  their  fleet  under  a  single  admiral, 
a  certain  Dionysius,  one  of  the  few  straggling  survivors  of  the 
population  of  Phocaea  who  had  drifted  back  to  their  old  home  and 
set  up  an  insignificant  town  among  its  ruins.  He  was  an  excellent 
captain,  and  kept  his  men  well  to  their  duty,  till  his  vigilance  and 
strict  discipline  provoked  the  listless  lonians.  They  refused  any 
longer  to  obey  a  man  who  had  no  strong  squadron  of  the  ships  of 
his  own  city  at  his  back,  and,  as  the  Persians  delayed  their  attack 
day  after  day,  fell  into  a  perilous  carelessness  and  security.  At 
last  the  enemy  came  down  upon  them,  and  they  hastily  formed  a 
line  of  battle  to  meet  him.  The  honor  of  the  day  was  very  un- 
equally distributed.  The  Samians  fled  at  a  very  early  hour,  with  a 
precipitancy  that  suggested  treachery  rather  than  cowardice.  The 
Lesbians  gave  way  no  long  time  after.  The  Chians,  however,  main- 
tained the  fight  after  their  untrustworthy  allies  and  all  the  rest  of 
the  fleet  had  abandoned  the  fray,  and  only  succumbed  after  the 
larger  number  of  their  own  ships  had  been  sunk  or  taken  (496  B.C.). 

The  battle  of  Lade  was  decisive  in  its  results.  The  wreck  of 
the  defeated  fleet  dispersed,  and  each  city  had  to  await  its  doom 
without  deriving  aid  from  its  allies.  Miletus  was  the  first  to  fall ; 
Artaphernes  sat  down  before  it,  and  took  it  after  a  protracted  siege. 
He  burned  the  city  and  reduced  its  inhabitants  to  slavery;  so  thor- 
oughly was  the  work  done  that  Miletus  never  appears  again  as  pos- 
sessing anything  like  its  former  importance.  The  preeminence 
among  the  Ionian  towns  fell  to  Ephesus,  which  had  disarmed  the 
wrath  of  Persia  by  a  prompt  and  tame  submission.  The  fall  of 
Aliletus  caused  bitter  grief  and  self-reproach  at  Athens.  When  the 
people  realized  that  they  had  allowed  their  best  allies  against  the 
Persian  to  perish  unaided,  they  could  not  restrain  their  sorrow  and 
shame.  Next  year  the  tragic  poet  Phrynichus  exhibited  on  a  stage 
a  play  called  "  The  Taking  of  Miletus  "  (Mdrjroo  aXuxn?),  At  its 
production  the  whole  theater  was  plunged  in  tears,  and  the  author 
was  fined  a  thousand  drachmae  for  recalling  the  unwelcome  subject. 

After  Miletus  had  succumbed,  the  turns  of  Samos,  Chios,  and 


138  GREECE 

494  B.C. 

Mitylene  arrived.  Each  was  subdued  after  more  or  less  resistance. 
Their  fates,  though  hard,  were  not  so  crushing  as  that  of  Miletus. 
Heavy  fines  were  laid  on  them,  and  many  of  their  inhabitants 
were  deported  to  Asia,  but  no  wholesale  ruin  or  massacre  ensued- 
Internal  freedom  was  allowed  to  remain,  and  it  was  noted  that  the 
Persians,  discontented  with  the  way  in  which  the  Ionian  tyrants 
had  failed  to  be  a  support  to  their  masters,  showed  themselves  more 
favorable  to  democracy  than  could  have  been  expected.  Last  of 
all,  a  few  scattered  towns  on  the  Propontis  which  still  held  out 
were  subdued  one  by  one.  In  that  part  of  the  world  Histiaeus 
had  for  the  last  two  years  been  leading  a  precarious  and  piratical 
existence,  a  plague  to  Greeks  no  less  than  Persians.  He  now  fell 
into  the  hands  of  Artaphernes  during  an  insignificent  skirmish  near 
Atarneus,  and  was  promptly  fmpaled  by  his  captor,  much  to  the 
displeasure  of  Darius,  who  still  cherished  a  feeling  of  gratitude 
to  the  preserver  of  the  bridge  on  the  Danube  (494  b.c).  With  the 
exception  of  a  few  fugitives  who  fled  to  the  West,  all  the  king's 
subjects  had  now  fallen  or  returned  to  their  allegiance. 

The  great  Ionian  revolt  was  now  at  an  end,  after  six  years  of 
desultory  warfare.  Its  course  had  brought  three  facts  into 
prominence.  The  first  was  the  incapacity  of  Greek  states  for 
combination  into  a  close  federal  alliance.  The  jealousies  be- 
tween city  and  city,  and  the  narrow  patriotism  which  made  men 
comparatively  indifferent  to  the  fate  of  the  Hellenic  race,  provided 
their  own  town  w-as  flourishing,  were  sufficient  to  prevent  any 
efficacious  common  action  in  war.  A  Greek  alliance,  in  short,  could 
only  be  kept  together  by  the  power  of  some  one  state  overawing 
the  rest,  as  was  afterwards  the  case  during  the  existence  of  the 
Confederacy  of  Delos.  And  even  w-hen  such  a  consummation  had 
arrived,  the  desire  for  complete  local  autonomy  was  so  keen  that 
all  the  weaker  members  of  a  federation  would  be  secretly  longing 
for  a  disruption,  in  order  to  free  themselves  from  the  hegemony  of 
the  leading  state.  The  second  characteristic  of  the  Ionian  revolt 
w^as  the  slow  and  inefficient  working  of  the  military  machinery  of 
the  Persian  empire.  To  subdue  the  revolted  towns  of  a  single 
satrapy  six  years  of  war  had  been  required.  Unless  the  king  him- 
self were  present  in  person,  to  compel  all  his  satraps  and  com- 
manders to  act  promptly  and  in  loyal  combination,  there  was  a 
tendency  to  slackness  and  spasmodic  effort  on  the  part  of  the  Per- 
sian officers  in  Asia.     Thirdly,  the  prompt  conclusion  of  the  war 


IONIAN    REVOLT  139 

492  B.C. 

after  the  battle  of  Lade  proved  that  a  fleet  was  more  important 
than  an  army  in  attacking  the  Greek  world.  When  the  command 
of  the  sea  had  passed  to  the  barbarian,  and  each  state  on  its  island 
or  peninsula  was  cut  off  from  communication  with  its  fellows,  a 
complete  collapse  of  resistance  followed.  We  shall  see  all  these 
tendencies  illustrated  again,  though  with  a  different  relative  im- 
portance, in  the  greater  struggle  between  Persia  and  the  Greeks  of 
Europe  which  began  a  few  years  after  the  end  of  the  Ionian  revolt. 

The  share  vvhich  Athens  and  Eretria  had  taken  in  the  sack  of 
Sardis  had  not  escaped  the  memory  of  Darius.  When  his  revolted 
subjects  were  once  subdued,  he  was  determined  that  there  should  be 
no  delay  in  punishing  the  more  distant  enemy.  A  legend,  which  is 
true  in  the  spirit  if  not  in  the  letter,  tells  us  how  the  Great  King 
bade  his  cup-bearer  to  repeat  to  him  thrice  at  every  banquet  the 
words,  "  Master,  remember  the  Athenians,"  lest  the  insult  wrought 
at  Sardis  should  ever  vanish  from  his  mind. 

The  year  after  the  end  of  the  revolt  was  devoted  to  the  prepara- 
tion of  an  expedition  to  chastise  the  objects  of  Darius's  enmity.  In 
492  B.C.  Mardonius  came  down  from  Susa  to  take  the  command. 
He  sent  a  fleet  to  coast  round  the  north  shore  of  the  Aegean,  and 
himself  led  an  army  parallel  to  it  by  the  great  road  which  runs 
between  the  sea  and  the  spurs  of  the  Rhodope.  But  fortune  fought 
for  Athens.  A  hurricane  strev/ed  the  rocky  shores  of  the  peninsula 
of  Athos  v^'ith  the  wrecks  of  three  hundred  Persian  galleys.  A 
few  days  later  a  desperate  battle  with  the  wild  Thracian  tribes  so 
thinned  the  ranks  of  iMardonius's  army  that,  although  victorious, 
he  halted,  and  shrank  from  a  further  advance.  The  attack  on  the 
king's  enemies  had  to  be  put  off  for  another  year. 

Before  proceeding  to  relate  the  results  of  the  first  Persian 
expedition  which  touched  the  shores  of  European  Greece,  we  must 
explain  the  condition  of  affairs  in  that  country. 


Chapter   XVI 

CONSTITUTION  OF  CLEISTHENES,  510-508  B.C. 

OF  the  numerous  tyrants  of  European  Greece  the  son  of 
Peisistratus  had  been  the  last  to  fall.  Even  before  his 
expulsion  the  zeal  which  had  led  on  the  Spartans  to  attack 
tyrants  wherever  they  found  them  had  cooled  down ;  and  it  had 
been  with  a  half-hearted  effort  that  they  had  cast  out  the  ruler  of 
Athens.  The  danger  of  an  anti-Dorian  movement  led  by  a  league 
of  tyrants  had  been  removed  long  before,  when  Corinth  fell ;  and  in 
crushing  Hippias  the  Spartans  had  destroyed  a  useful  ally  merely 
to  satisfy  a  religious  scruple — a  scruple  which,  as  they  soon  heard, 
had  been  deliberately  played  upon  by  an  unscrupulous  politician  and 
a  mercenary  priesthood.  Apollo  must  have  been  in  bad  odor  at 
Sparta  when  the  bribery  of  his  oracle  was  discovered,  and  his  be- 
hests were  never  again  obeyed  with  the  single-hearted  loyalty  of 
old  days. 

\\'hen  Cleomenes  had  drawn  off  his  troops,  and  liberated 
Athens  was  left  to  herself,  it  seemed  for  a  moment  as  if  the  old 
factions  had  learned  no  lesson  under  the  strong  hand  of  the  Peisis- 
tratidae.  Civil  strife  at  once  broke  out,  the  opposing  leaders  being 
Cleisthenes  the  Alcmaeonid,  chief  of  the  newly  returned  exiles,  and 
Isagoras,  the  son  of  Tisander.  The  matter  was  at  first  a  personal 
rivalry  between  two  powerful  nobles,  but  ere  long  it  took  the  shape 
of  a  political  struggle;  for  when  Isagoras  strengthened  himself 
by  organizing  a  new  oligarchic  party,  Cleisthenes  at  once  assumed 
the  role  of  a  leader  of  the  populace.  "  He  took  the  democracy  into 
partnership,"  says  Herodotus,  "  it  having  been  previously  excluded 
from  all  authority."  Thirty  years  of  the  rule  of  the  Peisistratidae 
had  weakened  the  oligarchic  tendencies  in  Athens,  by  breaking  up 
the  traditions  of  authority  and  influence  which  had  belonged  to  the 
old  houses.  On  the  other  hand,  it  had  been  favorable  to  the  growth 
of  democratic  feeling;  for  under  the  tyrants  all  men  had  been 
equal,  though  equal  in  slavery  alone.  xVccordingly  it  was  found 
that  Isagoras  had  sumriioned  to  his  aid  a  waning  power,  while 

140 


CLEISTHENES  141 

509-508  B.  C. 

Cleisthenes  was  backed  by  the  rising  sentiment  of  the  majority  of 
the  nation.  The  oHgarch  was  easily  worsted,  and  had  to  fly,  while 
the  democrat  was  left  in  possession  of  the  field  (509  B.C.) 

Isagoras  without  delay  called  in  foreign  enemies  in  order  to 
worst  his  rival,  reckless  of  the  evils  he  was  thereby  bringing  on  his 
country.  Flying  to  Sparta,  he  stirred  up  his  personal  friend  King 
Cleomenes  to  expel  Cleisthenes  from  Athens  by  force.  So  easy 
was  the  task  in  the  king's  estimation  that  he  marched  on  Athens 
at  the  head  of  a  few  hundred  personal  retainers  only,  without 
asking  for  or  receiving  the  national  army  of  Sparta,  or  the  con- 
tingents of  the  numerous  Peloponnesian  states  which  looked  to 
that  city  as  their  head.  He  sent  before  him  a  herald  to  bid  the 
Athenians  "expel  the  accursed  family,"  using  the  old  scruple  con- 
cerning the  hereditary  blood-guiltiness  of  the  Alcmaeonidae  for 
their  sacrilegious  slaughter  of  the  Cylonian  conspirators,  in  order 
to  discredit  the  Alcmaeonid  Cleisthenes  with  his  fellow-citizens. 
The  reformer  had  either  overrated  the  strength  of  the  Spartan  army, 
or  resolved  to  do  his  best  to  deprive  Cleomenes  of  his  nominal  casus 
belli.  Immediately  on  the  arrival  of  the  herald  he  withdrew  from 
Athens.  Deprived  of  their  leader,  and  not  yet  realizing  their  oWn 
or  their  adversaries'  strength,  the  Athenians  threw  open  their  gates 
to  Cleomenes  and  Isagoras.  The  Spartan's  retainers  garrisoned 
the  Acropolis,  while  the  oligarch  installed  himself  in  office  as 
archon,  and  mustered  his  partisans  to  overthrow  the  new  democratic 
constitution  by  a  fictitious  vote  of  the  people.  Then  Isagoras  de- 
clared the  Athenian  "  Senate  of  Four  Hundred  "  dissolved,  and 
replaced  it  by  a  body  of  three  hundred  oligarchs  named  by  himself. 
At  the  same  time  seven  hundred  families  of  the  democratic  party 
were  expelled  from  the  city,  and  sent  to  join  Cleisthenes  in  exile 
(508  B.C.). 

Meanwhile  the  people  of  Athens  had  the  time  to  count  up  the 
number  of  Cleomenes'  body-guard,  and  to  gauge  the  strength  of 
the  native  partisans  of  Isagoras.  The  result  was  a  sudden  and 
spontaneous  insurrection,  which  broke  the  power  of  the  oligarchs 
in  a  few  hours.  Isagoras  and  his  followers  were  driven  pell-mell 
within  the  gates  of  the  Acropolis,  the  only  spot  which  his  Spartan 
friends  were  able  to  hold  for  him.  The  Senate  of  Four  Hundred 
reassembled  and  assumed  its  old  functions,  recalling  Cleisthenes 
and  all  the  other  exiles,  and  setting  the  full  armed  force  of  Attica 
to  blockade  the  Acropolis.     The  crowd  in  the  fortress  was  great, 


142  GREECE 

508  B.C. 

and  no  stock  of  provisions  had  been  laid  in,  so  that  in  a  very  lew 
days  the  garrison  were  approaching  a  state  of  starvation.  They 
were  soon  compelled  to  surrender  at  (liscrclion.  I'lic  Athenians, 
loath  to  drive  Sparta  to  a  war  of  vengeance,  spared  the  lives  of  Cleo- 
menes  and  his  hoplites,  and  allowed  them  to  depart.  The  king  suc- 
ceeded in  smuggling  oft"  Isagoras  in  the  ranks  of  his  troops,  but  the 
rest  of  the  oligarchs  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  people.  So  great  was 
the  rage  in  Athens  at  their  detestable  attempt  to  destroy  the  national 
constitution  by  the  aid  of  the  foreigner,  tliat  all  the  prominent  men, 
many  scores  in  number,  were  put  to  death.  The  rest  of  the  guilty 
party  were  sent  into  exile. 

Far  from  feeling  gratitude  for  the  preservation  of  his  life, 
Cleomenes  had  no  other  sentiment  in  his  heart,  when  he  returned 
to  Sparta,  than  hatred  for  the  people  who  had  brought  his  over- 
weening confidence  to  such  an  ignominious  fall.  News  soon  ar- 
rived at  Athens  that  the  king  was  straining  every  nerve  to  organize 
a  second  and  more  formidable  expedition  against  those  who  had 
worsted  him.  So  large  was  the  Spartan  contingent  in  the  new 
army  that  King  Demaratus,  the  colleague  of  Cleomenes,  was  joined 
with  him  in  command ;  while  the  whole  of  the  Peloponnesian  sub- 
ject-allies had  been  ordered  to  send  their  troops  to  the  Isthmus, 
though  no  information  was  given  them  as  to  the  destination  or 
object  of  the  expedition.  Terrified  at  the  impending  storm,  the 
Athenians  sent  ambassadors  to  Sardis,  to  beg  for  aid  from  the 
satrap  Artaphernes  and  his  master  the  Great  King.  But  the  Per- 
sian offered  hard  terms  to  the  Athenian  envoys.  He  could  con- 
ceive of  no  relation  between  the  Great  King  and  a  foreign  people 
other  than  that  of  master  and  subject.  Accordingly  he  refused  to 
pledge  the  armed  aid  of  Persia  to  the  Athenians,  unless  they  should 
make  the  typical  oft'erings  of  earth  and  v/ater,  and  acknowledge 
Darius  as  their  suzerain.  So  great  was  the  dread  of  Sparta  which 
filled  the  ambassadors'  minds  that  they  actually  accepted  the  satrap's 
conditions,  and  undertook,  in  the  name  of  Athens,  to  do  homage 
to  the  king.  On  their  return,  however,  they  were  astonished  to 
find  themselves  met  with  the  wildest  indignation.  Even  in  the 
worst  extremity  the  Athenians  had  not  dreamed  of  surrendering 
themselves  to  the  barbarian,  but  only  of  forming  an  alliance  with 
him.  The  engagement  was  repudiated,  the  treaty  disavowed,  and 
the  advocates  of  the  embassy  as  well  as  the  ambassadors  themselves 
fell  into  discredit. 


CLEISTHENES  143 

508    B.C. 

Athens  would  have  been  left  wholly  unaided  to  face  the  attack 
of  the  Peloponnesian  confederacy,  if  it  had  not  been  for  one  feeble 
ally  whom  she  possessed — the  little  Boeotian  town  of  Plataea. 
We  have  related  in  a  previous  chapter  how  the  Peisistratidae  had 
undertaken,  in  behalf  of  Athens,  the  protection  of  the  Plataeans 
against  their  Theban  neighbors,  and  now  the  alliance  was  still 
preserved.  But  the  friendship  of  Plataea  ensured  the  enmity  of 
Thebes,  and  when  Cleomenes  was  mustering  his  army  the  Boeotian 
League  thought  that  the  opportunity  had  come  to  reclaim  its  one 
recalcitrant  member.  The  Thebans  drew  into  alliance  with  them- 
selves the  people  of  Chalcis,  the  great  maritime  town  of  Euboea, 
who  were  jealous  of  the  rising  commercial  and  maritime  power  of 
Athens,  and  were  not  averse  to  crush  a  city  which  was  beginning 
to  supersede  older  marts  as  the  emporium  of  the  Central  Aegean. 
Cleomenes,  therefore,  found  it  easy  to  concert  a  plan  of  operations 
with  the  Boeotians  and  Chalcidians,  who  undertook  to  fall  on  Attica 
from  the  north  as  soon  as  the  Spartan  army  should  have  passed 
the  Isthmus. 

It  was,  accordingly,  with  every  prospect  of  success  before  him 
that  Cleomenes  led  his  army  through  the  Megarid  into  the  plain  of 
Eleusis.  Once  arrived  there,  the  allies  learned  the  purpose  for  which 
they  had  been  assembled — a  purpose  which  many  of  them  viewed 
with  the  highest  disgust.  For  Cleomenes  now  proposed  a  plan  far 
more  iniquitous  than  that  of  overthrowing  the  democratic  constitu- 
tion of  Athens;  he  openly  avowed  that  he  would  make  his  friend 
Isagoras  tyrant  of  Attica.  Such  an  act  would  have  been  a  formal 
repudiation  of  the  policy  which  Sparta  had  hitherto  pursued,  that 
of  expelling  all  the  tyrants  whom  she  met.  King  Demaratus,  who 
was  joined  with  Cleomenes  in  the  command  of  the  army,  was  not 
unnaturally  provoked  into  setting  himself  in  opposition  to  his  col- 
league, and  found  himself  supported  by  the  majority  of  the  allies. 
The  Athenians,  who  had  mustered  in  full  force  on  the  eastern  skirts 
of  the  Thriasian  Plain,  were  surprised  to  find  that  the  enemy  made 
no  movement  of  advance.  Everything,  indeed,  was  in  confusion  in 
the  Peloponnesian  camp.  The  Corinthians,  who  remembered  the 
ills  they  had  suffered  under  the  house  of  Cypselus,  took  the  lead 
in  refusing  to  fight  merely  that  a  tyranny  might  be  established  at 
Athens.  Many  of  the  contingents  of  the  smaller  states  showed  a 
similar  disposition,  and  Demaratus  backed  them  with  his  authority. 
At  last,  after  a  stormy  council  of  war,  the  army  broke  up ;  the  allies 


144  GREECE 

508  B.C. 

returned  to  their  homes,  and  Cleomenes  was  forced  to  retrace  his 
steps  towards  Sparta  without  having  enjoyed  his  revenge. 

While  the  Athenian  army  had  been  concentrated  in  front  of 
the  main  body  of  invaders,  the  Boeotians  and  Chalcidians  had 
ravaged  the  northeastern  denies  of  Attica  without  meeting  with 
resistance.  But  the  moment  that  the  Peloponnesians  had  de- 
parted, the  Athenians  hastily  turned  northward  to  check  these  in- 
cursions. They  marched  first  against  the  Chalcidians,  but,  hearing 
that  the  Thebans  were  hurrying  coastwards  to  join  their  confeder- 
ates, threw  themselves  between  two  forces  and  attacked  them  in 
detail.  In  one  day  they  fought  two  battles.  In  the  morning  they 
fell  on  the  Boeotians  and  routed  them,  taking  seven  hundred  pris- 
oners; then,  crossing  the  Euripus  into  Euboea,  they  encountered 
the  Chalcidians  in  the  afternoon  and  won  another  victory. 

So  decisive  was  the  second  engagement,  that  Chalcis  itself  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  conquerors.  Expelling  from  the  city  the 
families  called  Hippobotae,  who  had  ruled  it  as  a  strict  oligarchy, 
the  Athenians  divided  their  confiscated  estates  into  four  thousand 
farms,  and  bestowed  them  on  poor  citizens  of  Athens.  This  was 
the  second  of  their  many  Clcruchies/  or  "  lottings-out "  of  con- 
quered territory.  Although  the  lower  classes  in  Chalcis  were  left 
unharmed  to  dwell  among  the  new  settlers,  the  state  was  in  reality 
transformed  into  a  mere  dependency  of  Athens,  as  all  political  power 
rested  with  the  permanent  garrison  of  Cleruchs.  A  comparison 
at  once  suggests  itself  between  this  settlement  and  the  system  of 
"  colonies  "  which  the  Romans  found  so  effectual  in  holding  down 
newly  conquered  districts  in  Italy. 

Few  statesmen  have  found  themselves  in  such  a  favorable 
position  as  Cleisthenes  enjoyed  at  this  moment,  and  few  have  ever 
made  a  better  use  of  their  opportunities.  In  the  short  time  of  his 
ascendency  he  completely  remodeled  the  Athenian  constitution.  A 
taste  for  political  reorganization,  indeed,  seems  to  have  been  innate 
in  his  blood;  for  his  grandfather,  Cleisthenes  of  Sicyon,  from  whom 
he  derived  his  name,  had  been  famous  for  the  manner  in  which 
he  recast  the  institutions  of  his  native  town ;  and  his  brother  Hip- 
pocrates was  the  grandfather  of  the  yet  greater  reformer  Pericles. 

The  results  of  the  work  of  Cleisthenes  were  not  to  be  ephem- 

1  The  first  had  been  the  lotting  out  of  Salamis  after  a  conquest  from  the 
Megarians,  somewhere  about  the  year  587  b.c.;  a  fact  preserved  in  an  inscrip- 
tion only. 


CLEISTHENES  145 

508  B.C. 

eral ;  they  made  themselves  felt  through  the  whole  of  the  subsequent 
history  of  Athens,  and  were  the  foundation  on  which  all  succeeding 
legislators  built.  For  their  plan  was  so  well  suited  to  the  needs 
of  the  times,  that  it  admitted  with  ease  and  safety  of  all  those  ad- 
ditions and  modifications  in  a  democratic  direction  which  Aristeides, 
Pericles,  and  other  statesmen  afterwards  devised.  At  the  base 
of  the  new  constitution  lay  the  idea  of  the  supreme  authority  of 
the  whole  body  of  citizens  gathered  in  their  assembly;  and  this 
being  once  granted,  all  new  developments  of  the  functions  of  that 
body  were  logical  consequences  of  the  original  conception  of  its 
omnipotence. 

Cleisthenes  began  his  reforms  with  the  most  simple  elements  of 
the  state,  completely  recasting  the  whole  of  the  local  and  tribal 
divisions  of  citizens.  He  could  not,  of  course,  interfere  with  the 
ancient  ties  of  the  yivo<s,  the  clan  brotherhood  of  families  who 
owned  a  common  hearth  and  altar,  a  common  burial  ground  and 
common  festivals,  and  were  bound  by  reciprocal  oaths  to  aid  and 
cherish  each  other.  But  the  associations  larger  than  the  clan  he 
was  determined  to  dissolve.  Neither  tribal  exclusiveness  nor  local 
jealousies  should  keep  the  Athenian  people  from  blending  into  a 
homogeneous  whole. 

Cleisthenes  accordingly  superseded  the  four  ancient  Ionic 
tribes,  whose  lineages  were  supposed  to  descend  from  the  four 
mythic  sons  of  Ion — the  strangely  named  Hoples,  Geleon,  Argades, 
and  Aegicores.  For  the  four  tribes  he  substituted  ten,  which  took 
their  names  from  Attic  kings  and  heroes.-  The  new  tribesmen  were 
to  reverence  their  eponymous  patron,  but  they  could  make  no  pre- 
tense of  being  descended  from  him.  To  be  a  member  of  the  tribe  Ce- 
cropis  did  not  imply  supposed  connection  with  the  snake-footed 
king,  nor  did  all  who  worshiped  Ajax  thereby  claim  a  Salaminian 
pedigree.  The  units  which  composed  the  new  tribal  divisions  were 
local,  consisting  of  demes.  The  deme  was  a  small  township  or 
parish — to  use  English  terminology — whose  origin  could  in  some 
cases  be  traced  back  to  one  of  the  old  Attic  boroughs,  such  as  Rham- 
nus  or  Sphettus,  or  Eleusis,  which  Theseus  had  united  into  the  one 
Athenian   state.     In  others  it  was  the  settlement  of  a  clan,   the 

2  The  name  of  the  tribe  Aiantis  was  probably  devised  in  order  to  assert  the 
fact  that  Salamis.  the  fatherland  of  Ajax,  had  become  completely  part  and  par- 
cel of  Attica,  so  that  Athens  might  claim  its  heroes  as  her  own.  The  names  of  the 
tribes  were  Cecropis,  Pandionis,  Erectheis,  Aegeis,  Acamantis,  Hippothoontis, 
Antiochis,  Aiantis,  Leontis,  Oeneis. 


146  GREECE 

508  B.C. 

home  of  the  real  or  reputed  descendants  of  a  single  ancestor ;  for 
the  deme  of  Echelidae  or  Philaidae  was  the  settlement  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Echelus  or  Philaeus,  just  as  in  Saxon  England  the  town- 
ship of  Oddington  was  the  settlement  of  the  children  of  Odda. 
Now,  if  Cleisthenes  had  given  ten  neighboring  demes  of  the  hill- 
country  to  the  tribe  Antiochis,  or  ten  sea-coast  demes  to  the  tribe 
Cecropis,  he  would  have  simply  been  opening  up  again  opportunities 
for  the  reconstruction  of  the  old  local  factions  of  the  Hills,  the 
Plain,  and  the  Shore.  Accordingly,  he  took  exactly  the  opposite 
course.  Except  in  the  case  of  one,  or  at  most  two,  tribes,  he  care- 
fully gave  each  of  them  a  cluster  of  demes  in  each  of  the  three  dis- 
tricts, so  that  the  tribal  interest  should  be  divided  equally  into  three. 
So  Oenoe  in  the  northwest,  and  iVrga  in  the  midland,  fell  to  the 
same  tribe,  Hippothoontis,  as  did  Azenia  in  the  extreme  south- 
east. The  town  of  Athens  itself  was  split  up  into  eight  demes, 
belonging  to  six  different  tribes,  while  the  other  four  were  repre- 
sented in  its  suburbs.  So  well  did  this  scheme  work  that  never 
again  in  the  course  of  Attic  history  do  we  find  local  associations 
giving  trouble  to  the  state.  W^ithin  a  few  years  the  union  of  the 
demes  of  the  northeast  into  a  faction  of  Diacrii,  or  of  those  of  the 
southwest  into  a  faction  of  Paralii,  had  ceased  to  be  conceivable. 
While  the  deme,  with  its  demarch  and  local  judges,  dealt  with  the 
details  of  local  administration  and  justice,  the  tribe  v.-as  made  the 
unit  for  all  state  business. 

Into  all  the  demes  and  tribes  Cleisthenes  swept  almost  the  whole 
free  population  of  Attica,  and  many  persons  who  could  not  even 
be  called  wholly  free.  He  enfranchized  not  only  such  "  metics  " 
or  resident  aliens  as  desired  to  take  up  the  citizenship  of  Athens, 
but  even  servile  clients,  or  Souhn  p.iznuot,  as  they  were  called.  This 
class  consisted  of  slaves  who  dwelt  apart  from  their  masters,  and 
possessed  property  of  their  own,  though  they  had  not  yet  been 
completely  freed.  By  becoming  citizens  they  were  of  course 
relieved  of  all  their  disabilities,  and  raised  to  the  same  status  as 
their  ex-proprietors.  The  new  citizens  went,  as  Cleisthenes  had 
no  doubt  intended,  to  swell  the  forces  of  the  democracy.  It  must 
have  been  no  small  blow  to  the  pride  of  the  old  oligarchic  houses 
to  find  themselves  enrolled  in  the  same  tribe — perhaps  even  in  the 
same  deme  as  their  late  dependents.  But  we  do  not  find  that 
the  strength  and  vigor  of  the  state  was  in  the  least  decreased  by 
the    influx  of  the  newly  enfranchised ;  indeed,   for  a   city  whicli 


CLEISTHENES  147 

508  B.  C. 

v/as  just  about  to  step  forward  to  compete  for  the  hegemony  in 
Greece,  the  accession  of  thousands  of  wilHng  arms  was  an  unmixed 
blessing. 

The  tribe  organization  was  made  by  Cleisthenes  the  basis  of  a 
reorganization  of  the  Boule,  or  Senate.  That  body  was  for  the 
future  to  consist  of  five  hundred  members,  of  whom  fifty  w-ere 
elected  from  each  tribe.  Solon's  old  number  of  four  hundred  sena- 
tors therefore  now  vanishes.  The  Senate  formed  a  jiermanent 
deliberative  body,  charged  with  the  duty  of  discussing  all  matters 
of  public  import,  and  sending  down  recommendations  dealing  with 
them  to  be  voted  on  by  the  public  assembly  of  the  whole  body  of 
citizens.  These  recommendations,  or  -po^jouUoiiara^  had  no  validity 
in  themselves,  and  only  assumed  force  after  they  had  been  ratified 
by  the  Ecclesia.  In  this  they  differed  from  the  Roman  "  Senatus 
Consultum,"  which,  acquiring  by  usage  an  independent  authority, 
made  the  Senate  at  Rome  a  power  practically  co-ordinate  with  the 
assembly  of  citizens.  Besides  acting  as  a  body  for  preliminary  de- 
liberation, the  Athenian  Senate  supplied  presidents  to  the  Ecclesia. 
The  year  was  divided  into  ten  periods  of  thirty-five  or  thirty-six 
days  each,  and  one  of  these  was  given,  in  a  rotation  settled  by  lot, 
to  the  senators  of  each  tribe.  The  period  was  called  a  Prytany 
(TTpuraveia ) ,  and  the  fifty  senators  who  were  in  office  during  its  con- 
tinuance were  known  as  Prytaneis.  They  were  boarded  and  lodged 
in  a  public  building,  named  the  Prytaneium,  at  the  expense  of  the 
state.  Thus  they  were  always  on  the  spot,  ready  to  act  as  a  com- 
mittee of  the  Senate  at  the  shortest  notice.  Each  Prytany  was 
divided  into  five  bodies  of  ten  men  each  (Proedri),  and  each  ten 
presided  for  seven  days  at  all  meetings  both  of  Senate  or  Ecclesia 
which  occurred  during  their  term  of  dignity.  They  chose  from 
among  themselves  every  day  a  chairman  called  the  Epistates,  who 
was,  during  his  twenty-four  hours  of  office,  supreme  president  alike 
of  Senate  and  public  assembly.  To  him  were  handed  over  every 
morning  the  keys  of  the  Acropolis  and  the  treasury,  together  with 
the  great  seal  of  the  republic,  all  which  the  ephemeral  dignitary 
resigned  to  his  successor  at  the  next  dawn. 

By  the  wholesale  additions  which  he  made  to  the  roll  of  fully 
qualified  citizens^.  Cleisthenes  largely  increased  the  numbers  of  the 
public  assembly — a  body  which  is  now  known  as  "  Ecclesia  "  when 
it  meets  for  political  purposes,  "  Heliaea  "  when  it  has  judicial 
business  in  hand.     Anything  which  the  assembly  may  have  lost  in 


148  GREECE 

508  B.C. 

authority  by  becoming  unmanageably  numerous  was  more  than 
compensated  by  its  increased  privileges  and  new  opportunities  for 
interference  in  all  state  business.  Instead  of  being  convoked  at 
irregular  intervals  according  to  the  caprice  of  the  magistrates,  the 
Ecclesia  was  now  given  one  day  of  meeting  in  each  Prytany,  so  that 
it  would  not  be  summoned  less  than  ten  times  in  the  year.  But,  in 
addition,  it  might  be  convoked  at  any  extraordinary  crisis  by  au- 
thority of  the  Senate  or  of  the  Strategi.  These  extra  sessions  grew 
more  and  more  numerous,  till  at  last,  by  the  fifth  century,  the  num- 
ber of  meetings  during  a  Prytany  was  increased  to  four,  the  power 
to  hold  additional  ones  when  necessary  being  still  retained  in  spite 
of  the  multiplication  of  ordinary  days  of  assembly.  The  Ecclesia 
as  we  know  it  in  the  fifth  century  could  deal  with  every  kind 
of  business.  It  heard  foreign  ambassadors,  and  after  due  dis- 
cussion decided  on  questions  of  war,  peace,  alliance,  or  treaty. 
It  received  at  the  end  of  the  year  an  account  of  his  stewardship 
from  every  magistrate  who  served  the  republic.  It  could  supple- 
ment the  constitution  by  passing  new  laws  of  universal  application, 
or  special  decrees  to  meet  special  circumstances.^  It  could  exercise 
by  its  votes  full  authority  over  revenue  and  taxation.  It  dis- 
tributed honors  and  rewards  to  deserving  citizens  or  strangers. 
In  short  the  democracy  now  controlled  the  executive  and  legislative 
departments  of  government,  and  in  another  form  and  under  another 
name,  that  of  Heliaea,  it  had  also  full  possession  of  the  judicial 
functions  of  the  state.  After  the  introducer  of  a  measure  and  the 
privileged  presidents  of  the  assembly,  the  Epistates  and  Proedri, 
had  spoken,  it  was  open  to  any  citizen  to  rise  from  his  place, 
mount  the  Bema,  or  speaker's  platform,  and  address  the  people. 
This  much-valued  right  of  free  speech  (  iza^p-qaia  )  was  the  proudest 
boast  of  the  Athenian.  Its  possession  led  a  very  large  number 
of  citizens  to  qualify  themselves  as  public  speakers,  so  that 
oratorical  power  and  capacity  for  debate  were  not  confined  to 
any  class  or  profession  in  the  city.  Of  course  the  Ecclesia  had  its 
well-known  favorites,  who  could  almost  be  called  professional 
orators,  but  their  harangues  might  be  interspersed  with  those  of 
any  farmer  or  artisan  whom  enthusiasm,  indignation,  or  impudence 
stirred  up  to  speaking  point.     Bad  oratory  found  its  check  in  the 

^  Of  decrees  at  Athens  (I'Titpiafxa  is  one  passed  on  its  own  initiative  by  the  Ec- 
clesia; TZfj(>!i»o).to!xa  is  a  recommendation  of  the  Senate  sent  down  to  the 
Ecclesia  for  ratification ;  vofioii   is  a  permanent  part  of  the  constitution. 


C  L  E  I  S  T  H  E  N  E  S  149 

508  B.    C. 

hoots  and  hisses  with  which  the  crowd  were  ready  to  silence  the 
windbag  or  the  bore,  for  the  Ecclesia  was  more  celebrated  for 
HveHness  than  for  decorum.  On  days  of  an  important  debate  the 
whole  Pnyx  would  be  crammed  with  citizens,  but  when  the  agenda 
were  of  an  uninteresting  nature  a  small  muster  was  often  seen.  If 
it  was  too  scanty,  the  presidents  could  send  out  public  slaves, 
armed  with  a  rope  smeared  with  red  paint,  to  sweep  the  neigh- 
boring streets  of  their  loungers.  Thus  even  a  dull  day  in  the 
Ecclesia  was  not  destitute  of  its  humors.  Anyone  who,  while 
endeavoring  to  evade  a  rope  and  escape  the  meeting,  received  a 
touch  of  the  paint  was  liable  to  fine. 

The  Heliaea,  like  the  Ecclesia,  was  probably  composed  of  the 
whole  body  of  full  citizens,  or,  at  least,  of  all  full  citizens  over  thirty 
years  of  age.  Its  history  is  less  exactly  known  than  that  of  the 
Ecclesia,  but  it  would  appear  that  its  function  as  settled  by  Cleis- 
thenes  was  to  hear  appeals  from  decisions  of  magistrates,  and 
to  try  persons  accused  of  crimes  against  the  state,  such  as  treason. 
Cases  between  private  persons  still  had  a  first  hearing  before  the 
archons  or  other  individual  magistrates,  while  the  court  of  the 
Areopagus  retained  its  jurisdiction  in  cases  of  homicide,  and  its 
general  censorial  power  of  supervising  the  lives  of  citizens.  It 
was  probably  not  during  the  lifetime  of  Cleisthenes,  but  at  some 
subsequent  date  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  fifth  century,  that  the 
Heliaea  was  divided  into  dikastcrics.  By  later  ages  these  courts 
were  often  ascribed  to  Solon,  but  when  we  find  the  name  used  in  his 
time  it  probably  meant  the  whole  Heliaea,  not  a  subdivision  of  it. 
In  later  times  there  were  ten  large  courts  each  composed  of  many 
hundred  sworn  jurors,  called  Heliasts  or  Dicasts.  When  a  case 
came  on  for  decision,  the  dikasteries  cast  lots  to  see  which  should 
try  it ;  while  the  six  junior  archons,  or  Thesmothetae,  also  cast  lots 
to  settle  v/hich  of  them  was  to  sit  as  president  of  the  dikastery. 
These  elaborate  precautions  were  directed  against  the  possible  use 
of  bribery  or  intimidation.  For  since  a  criminal  would  not  know 
till  the  last  moment  v/hich  archon  would  be  the  presiding  judge, 
or  which  dikastery  would  be  the  jury  at  his  trial,  he  could  not 
set  to  work  to  exert  influence  or  corruption  on  them.  Moreover, 
the  great  size  of  the  dikastery  itself  would  have  made  it  difficult  to 
try  bribery.  Justice  at  Athens,  then,  might  be  perverted  by  preju- 
dice or  party  strife,  but  hardly  ever  by  the  coarser  means  of  corrup- 
tion     In  this  the  Athenian  courts  compare  very  favorably  with 


160  GREECE 

508  B.C. 

those  of  Rome,  where  during  the  last  century  of  the  repubhc  bribery 
seems  to  have  been  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception. 

Having-  discussed  the  Ecclesia  and  the  Heliaea,  we  must  now 
turn  to  the  magistracy.  Solon's  complicated  arrangements  for  the 
choice  of  archons  had  fallen  into  desuetude  during  the  tyranny  of 
the  Peisistratidae,  who  had  practically  nominated  such  persons  as 
they  chose  for  the  office.  Cleisthenes  now  placed  the  election  in 
the  hands  of  the  newly-developed  Ecclesia,  which  thus  became  the 
maker  as  well  as  the  judge  of  the  chief  magistrates.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  direct  popular  election  had  never  before  pre- 
vailed; before  Solon  the  archons  had  been  nominated  by  the  Are- 
opagus; after  him  the  hazard  of  the  lot  had  limited  the  elector's 
choice.  It  was  not  till  now  that  the  democracy  really  obtained 
a  preponderating  influence  over  its  officials.  One  result  of  this 
arrangement  of  Cleisthenes  was  to  strengthen  the  Areopagus,  for 
all  archons  were  nov/  men  of  mark,  the  direct  choice  of  the  Ecclesia, 
and  as  they  passed  on  to  the  Areopagus  after  leaving  office,  brought 
it  a  great  accession  of  personal  influence. 

In  the  first  draft  of  the  new  constitution  the  old  military  ar- 
rangements of  the  republic  were  left  untouched,  the  polemarch  or 
third  archon  remaining  as  commander-in-chief,  while  under  him 
served  four  strategi,  who  had  formerly  represented  the  four  old 
tribes.  But  some  years  later,"*  Cleistlienes's  new  arrangement  of  the 
tribes  was  carried  into  the  province  of  war.  That  nieasure  had  re- 
sulted in  the  division  of  the  national  army  into  ten  bodies  of  approx- 
imately equal  strength.  To  suit  the  change,  the  number  of  strategi 
was  now  increased  to  ten,  each  to  head  the  hoplites  of  a  single  tribe. 
These  strategi  served  under  the  polemarch,  and  seem  from  the  first 
to  have  limited  his  authority  to  a  very  considerable  degree.  Being 
independent  officers  chosen  by  the  people,  they  were  not  so  wholly 
or  thoroughly  under  his  control  as  he  might  have  wished.  He  seems 
to  have  been  obliged  to  treat  them  as  a  permanent  council-of-war, 
and  on  one  occasion  we  shall  find  their  vote  counting  for  as  much 
as  his. 

There  remains  for  consideration  one  more  provision  of  im- 
portance in  the  Cleisthenic  constitution — the  extraordinary  device 
called  Ostracism.  The  personal  and  political  rivalry  of  great  party 
leaders  had  been  the  curse  of  Athens ;  it  had  led  to  the  usurpation  of 

•*  Aristotle's  newly-discovered  work  gives  two  irreconcilable  dates  for  this  sup- 
plementary legislation — it  may  have  been  either  in  504  b.  c.  or  501  u.  c. 


CLEISTHENES  151 

508  B.   C. 

the  Peisistratidae,  and  had  reasserted  itself  again  the  moment  that 
the  Peisistratidae  had  been  driven  out  in  the  conflict  between  Cleis- 
thenes  and  Isagoras.  The  reformer  cast  about  for  a  means  to  pre- 
vent it  for  the  future,  and  found  one  in  the  institution  of  honorable 
banishment,  which  men  called  Ostracism.  He  provided  that  at  any 
political  crisis  a  special  meeting  might  be  held,  in  which  the  people 
could  declare  by  their  vote  that  the  presence  of  any  individual  in 
Athens  was  prejudicial  to  the  state.  If  six  thousand  votes — ostraka, 
as  they  were  called,  from  being  written  upon  a  pot-sherd  ( oarpaxov ) 
— were  cast  into  the  ballot-box  against  any  one  name,  that  statesman 
went  into  exile  for  ten  years.  This  banishment  implied  no  necessary 
slur  on  the  personal  or  political  character  of  the  sufferer.  He  did  not 
lose  his  rights  of  citizenship,  or  incur  confiscation  of  property. 
When  his  enforced  travels  were  ended,  he  re-entered  the  city  with 
the  same  property  and  status  as  he  had  possessed  before  his  depar- 
ture. His  exile  had  not  been  intended  for  a  punishment  on  him,  but 
as  a  means  of  ending  a  political  dead-lock,  or  of  removing  a  person- 
ality which  was  inimical  for  the  time  being  to  the  interests  of  the 
state,  or  of  averting  the  consequences  of  an  honest  but  injudicious 
statesman's  personal  influence  on  the  people.  If  we  examine  the 
list  of  persons  ostracized,  we  find  that  not  only  Hipparchus,^  the 
advocate  of  the  return  of  the  Peisistratidae,  and  Damon,  the  over- 
zealous  friend  who  was  suspected  of  fostering  autocratic  views  in 
the  mind  of  Pericles,  are  included  in  it,  but  also  the  blameless 
Aristeides,  who  incurred  his  fate  merely  because  he  staked  his 
political  career  on  a  persistent  opposition  to  the  views  of  Themis- 
tocles,  which  were  in  favor  with  the  people  at  the  time.  Cimon 
and  Thucydides,  son  of  Melesias,  also  suffered  from  ostracism,  pro- 
voked by  the  necessity  put  before  the  Ecclesia  of  choosing  between 
their  policy  and  that  of  Pericles.  But  Cleisthenes  forgot  that  it 
v/as  possible  that  there  might  arise  more  than  two  parties  in  the 
state,  each  vrith  its  rival  policy.  The  final  disuse  of  ostracism,  after 
an  employment  of  about  a  century,  came  about  from  the  discovery 
that  it  was  powerless  to  remedy  the  confusion  which  arose  from 
the  coexistence  of  more  than  two  factions.  For  when  the  tribunal 
of  ostracism,  in  418  b.c.^  was  called  upon  to  decide  between  the 
leaders  of  the  war  party  and  the  peace  party,  Alcibiades  and  Nicias, 
the  partisans  of  those  statesmen  combined  to  black-ball  the  dema- 
gogue Hyperbolus,  chief  of  a  third  party,  the  extreme  democrats. 
5  Not  to  be  confused  with  his  relative,  the  tyrant  slain  by  Harmodius 


152  GREECE 

508    B.C. 

Thus  the  two  statesmen,  whose  poHcies  were  antagonistic,  still 
remained  to  divide  the  city  with  their  rivalry.  After  this  failure 
ostracism  was  never  again  employed. 

Such  were  the  chief  points  in  the  constitution  of  Cleisthenes, 
whose  establishment  marks  the  commencement  of  Athenian  great- 
ness. It  was  the  most  thoroughly  democratic  scheme  of  legislation 
which  had  yet  been  seen,  and  partook  of  the  nature  of  a  gigantic  ex- 
periment in  political  science.  No  previous  constitution  in  any  Greek 
city  had  given  the  assembly  of  the  full  body  of  citizens  such  untram- 
meled  power  to  sway  the  state.  Instead  of  the  restricted  privileges 
which  it  had  been  granted  by  Solon — the  right  to  elect  magistrates 
and  to  call  them  to  account  at  the  expiration  of  their  office — it  now- 
enjoyed  almost  unfettered  control  over  the  foreign  and  home  policy 
of  Athens,  and  also  had  the  supreme  judicial  power  in  the  state.  The 
partisans  of  oligarchy  foretold  the  speedy  ruin  of  the  city  which  had 
placed  the  conduct  of  affairs  in  the  hands  of  an  untried  and  fickle 
populace.  But  the  actual  result  of  the  adoption  of  democracy  at 
Athens  was  an  outburst  of  vigor,  unparalleled  before  or  after  in  any 
Greek  city.  The  town,  which  had  been  looked  upon  as  a  state  of  the 
second  class,  lying  off  the  main  road  of  commerce,  and  exercising 
little  influence  in  international  politics,  suddenly  started  up  as  a  great 
naval  and  military  power,  and  went  forth  conquering  and  to  conquer. 
Its  hoplites,  alone  and  unaided,  faced  and  flung  back  the  hitherto 
unvanquished  armies  of  the  king  of  the  East;  its  triremes,  after 
leading  the  united  fleets  of  Hellas  to  victory  against  the  common 
enemy,  established  an  unquestioned  supremacy  at  sea  which  the 
once-famed  squadrons  of  Corinth  and  Aegina  were  not  able  to 
dispute.  An  outburst  of  literary  and  artistic  energy  made  itself 
felt  at  the  same  moment,  and  rendered  Athens  the  intellectual  as 
well  as  the  commercial  center  of  the  Hellenic  race.  Far  from  being 
diverted  into  material  channels  by  the  far-reaching  political  inter- 
ests of  the  day,  the  genius  of  Athenian  art  and  literature  was  stimu- 
lated by  them  into  higher  flights,  and  its  fullest  development 
was  contemporaneous  with  the  zenith  of  the  imperial  greatness  of 
the  city. 

How  far  was  the  glory  of  Athens  in  the  fifth  century  the  result 
of  the  constitutional  reforms  which  had  marked  the  end  of  the 
sixth?  It  would,  no  doubt,  be  easy  to  exaggerate  the  extent  of 
their  connection,  and  to  forget  the  inspiring  effect  which  the 
victory  over  Persia,  won  twenty  years  later,  exercised  over  the 


CLEISTHENES  153 

508  B.    C. 

whole  Hellenic  race  no  less  than  over  Athens.  But  the  records  of 
the  years  which  preceded  Salamis  v/ould  be  sufficient  by  themselves 
to  prove  that  Athens  had  set  forth  on  the  path  of  greatness  long 
before  the  final  defeat  of  the  Eastern  invader.  In  the  history  of 
the  struggle  which  she  waged  in  order  to  maintain  her  new  consti- 
tution, when  her  neighbors  banded  themselves  together  to  crush 
her  rising  greatness,  we  shall  see  the  signs  of  the  same  spirit  which 
afterwards  enabled  her  to  withstand  the  Persian  and  to  found  an 
empire  of  the  seas. 


Chapter   XVII 

EUROPEAN  GREECE— JEALOUSY  OF  THE  STATES, 
509-490  B.C. 

IN  spite  of  the  defeat  of  their  alHes,  the  Boeotian  confederacy 
continued  the  war,  but  they  met  with  no  success  in  it.  Send- 
ing for  advice  to  Delphi,  the  Thebans  received  from  the  oracle 
the  command  to  "  ask  aid  of  those  nearest  to  them."  This  dark 
saying  could  not  apply  to  their  neighbors  of  Coronea  or  Tanagra, 
who  were  already  serving  in  the  army  of  the  league,  so  was  inter- 
preted— as  no  doubt  the  oracle  had  designed — into  a  hint  to  form  an 
alliance  with  the  Aeginetans.  Thebe  and  Aegina,  it  was  remem- 
bered, were,  according  to  the  old  myths,  sisters,  daughters  of  the 
river-god  Asopus ;  hence  their  descendants  might  be  regarded  as  the 
"  nearest  relatives  "  of  each  other.  An  embassy  was  therefore  sent 
to  ask  the  aid  of  the  powerful  island  state. 

The  same  commercial  jealousy  which  had  influenced  Chalcis 
made  itself  felt  at  Aegina  with  redoubled  force.  Athens  was  a 
possible  rival  before  the  fall  of  Chalcis,  but  after  she  had  swallowed 
up  the  trade  of  the  great  Euboean  town  she  had  become  doubly 
formidable.  If  we  add  that  as  Dorians  the  Aeginetans  despised 
their  Ionian  neighbors,  and  as  oligarchs  detested  their  democratic 
constitution,  we  can  easily  understand  their  frame  of  mind.  They 
still  possessed  the  largest  navy  in  European  Greece,  and  determined 
to  use  it  ere  Athens  had  time  to  grow  yet  greater.  Accordingly 
they  commenced  to  ravage  Phalerum  and  the  other  sea-coast  demes 
of  Western  Attica,  and  by  these  attacks,  which  the  Athenian  fleet 
was  not  strong  enough  to  resist,  drew  off  the  pressure  of  the  war 
from  the  Boeotians  (506  b.c). 

Aleanwhile  Cleomenes  had  returned  to  Sparta,  and  in  spite  of 
his  second  failure  found  himself  able  to  stir  up  his  countrymen 
to  new  projects  against  Athens.  They  tacitly  threw  blame  on 
Demaratus  for  having  opposed  his  colleague's  plans  by  passing  a 
decree  "  that  the  two  kings  should  never  in  future  go  out  in  the 
same  army,"     Moreover,  they  summoned  a  congress  of  delegates 

154 


JEALOUSY    OF    STATES  155 

506-505  B.C. 

from  the  whole  of  the  alHed  states  to  assemble  at  Sparta,  for  they 
apparently  considered  that  although  the  confederates  had  refused 
to  march  against  Athens  when  the  order  was  suddenly  and  arbi- 
trarily laid  before  them,  they  might  be  induced  to  reconsider 
their  determination  by  argument  and  debate.  The  Spartans  also 
took  the  strange  step  of  sending  for  Hippias  from  his  refuge  at 
Sigeum,  and  offering  to  restore  him  to  the  tyranny.  Finding  that 
Isagoras's  party  had  failed  to  help  them,  they  hoped  that  the  faction 
of  supporters  of  the  Peisistratidae,  which  still  survived  in  Athens, 
might  be  stirred  into  activity  by  their  aid,  and  used  to  break  up 
the  power  of  the  new  dem.ocracy.  Forgetting  the  old  grudge  of  his 
expulsion  from  Athens  by  Spartan  hands,  the  ex-tyrant  repaired  to 
the  congress,  and  joined  Cleomenes  in  plying  every  argument  on 
the  assembled  allies.  The  Corinthians,  however,  remained  obdurate, 
and  the  majority  of  the  members  of  the  Peloponnesian  league 
evidently  inclined  to  non-intervention.  Nothing  could  be  done  to 
convince  them,  and  Hippias  returned  in  disgust  to  his  place  of  exile 
in  the  Troad.  For  the  present  he  abandoned  the  attempt  to  make 
any  capital  out  of  the  internal  politics  of  Greece,  and  set  himself 
instead  to  win  favor  with  the  satrap  Artaphenies  of  Sardis,  who 
was  already  ill-disposed  towards  Athens  on  account  of  the  uncere- 
monious way  in  which  that  state,  two  years  before,  had  repudiated 
the  half-ratified  treaty  which  had  bound  it  to  Persia.  An  attempt 
to  conciliate  the  offended  magnate  which  the  Athenians  made, 
when  they  heard  of  the  intrigues  of  the  ex-tyrant,  had  no  other 
effect  than  to  draw  from  Artaphernes  the  declaration  that  "  they 
could  only  secure  their  safety  by  receiving  back  Hippias,  and 
giving  the  Great  King  earth  and  water."  From  that  moment  the 
Athenians  regarded  peace  with  the  great  Eastern  power  as  im- 
possible, and  resigned  themselves  to  the  necessity  of  adding  the 
Persian  to  the  already  considerable  list  of  their  enemies  (505  B.C.). 
At  a  moment  when  the  armies  of  ]\legabazus  v/ere  slowly  making 
their  way  westward  through  Thrace  and  Macedon  towards  Greece, 
the  consequences  of  offending  the  Great  King  must  have  seemed 
likely  to  be  fatal.  But  rather  than  give  up  their  cherished  consti- 
tution the  Athenians  resolved  to  brave  them. 

After  the  unfruitful  congress  at  Sparta,  in  which  the  Pelopon- 
nesians  had  refused  to  crush  Athens  for  Cleomenes's  gratification, 
the  Athenians  were  freed  from  the  foe  whom  tliey  most  dreaded. 
The.  peace  party  at  Sparta  was  not  only  headed  by  King  Demaratus, 


156  GREECE 

Circa  505  B.C. 

but  favored  by  the  ephors,  who  dreaded  lest  Cleomenes  should 
attempt  to  win  back  the  old  royal  power  of  the  Heraclidae.  Accord- 
ingly the  Lacedaemonians  and  their  allies  no  longer  appear  among 
the  enemies  of  Athens,  and  when  next  a  Spartan  king  is  heard  of 
in  connection  with  Athenian  affairs,  he  appears  in  a  benevolent 
rather  than  a  hostile  aspect.  It  is  probable  that  the  continued  neu- 
trality of  the  Peloponnesian  powers  was  in  some  degree  secured  by 
a  desperate  war  which  about  this  time  broke  out  between  Sparta 
and  Argos  (circ.  505  b.c.)^  The  Argives  had  never  forgotten 
the  ancient  supremacy  which  their  city  had,  in  the  days  of  Pheidon, 
enjoyed  over  all  the  lands  within  the  Isthmus,  and  seized  their 
opportunity  when  Sparta  was  estranged  from  the  majority  of  her 
allies.  Instead,  however,  of  being  able  to  molest  the  Lacedae- 
monians, they  were  obliged  to  fight  on  the  defensive,  for  Cleomenes 
advanced  at  once  into  Argolis.  After  trying  unsuccessfully  to 
attack  Argos  from  the  west,  the  king  compelled  the  Aeginetans 
and  Sicyonians  to  supply  him  with  ships,  and  landed  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Tiryns.  Here  he  found  the  Argive  army  occupying  a 
defensive  position  at  a  place  called  Sepeia,  between  their  capital  and 
the  sea.  By  gross  carelessness  the  Argives  allowed  themselves  to 
be  surprised,  and  received  a  crushing  defeat.  Nor  was  this  all : 
the  majority  of  the  fugitives  sought  refuge  hard  b)^,  in  the  sacred 
grove  of  the  hero  Argos,  where  they  were  completely  surrounded 
by  the  Spartan  army.  Cleomenes  might  have  received  them  in 
surrender,  and  obtained  any  terms  he  thought  fit  to  ask  for  their 
release;  but  he  chose  instead  to  commit  an  atrocity  which  has  few 
parallels  in  Greek  history.  He  blocked  all  the  outlets  with  troops, 
and  then  set  fire  to  the  grove.  Not  an  Argive  escaped  from  the 
flames  except  to  fall  by  the  sword.  In  this  huge  disaster  the  van- 
quished lost  six  thousand  men,  two-thirds  of  their  citizens  capable 
of  bearing  arms.  Cleomenes  might  have  taken  the  city  had  he 
chosen,  but  instead  of  doing  so  returned  home,  only  celebrating  his 
victory  by  forcing  his  way  into  the  great  temple  of  Hera,  which 
stood  outside  the  walls  of  Argos,  and  doing  solemn  sacrifice  therein, 
despite  the  priests,  whom  he  caused  to  be  flogged  for  their  remon- 
strances. On  being  attacked  at  Sparta  for  his  remissness,  he  gave 
the  ephors  the  curious  answer  that  the  Delphic  oracle  had  foretold 
that  he  should  "  destroy  Argos."     When  he  found  that  this  was  the 

1  The  date  of  this  war  is  doubtful.     Some  place  it  as  early  as  517  B.C.,,  others 
as  late  as  493  b.  c.     The  date  given  above  seems  probable,  however. 


JEALOUSY   OF    STATES  157 

510-490  B.C. 

name  of  the  grove  which  he  had  burned  after  the  battle,  he  saw  that 
the  prophecy  had  been  fulfilled;  moreover,  the  sacrifice  which  he 
made  at  the  temple  of  Hera  had  not  been  so  propitious  as  to  promise 
complete  success,  and  he  had  therefore  returned.  Whether  con- 
vinced or  not,  the  ephors  desisted  from  their  reproaches.  The  main 
importance  of  this  campaign  was  that  it  took  Argos  out  of  Greek 
politics  for  more  than  a  generation.  Its  reduced  population  saw 
their  subject-allies  of  Orneae,  Cleonae,  and  Mycenae  in  successful 
revolt,  and  were  even  reduced  to  struggle  for  existence  with  their 
own  agricultural  serfs,  who  rose  and  maintained  a  vigorous  war 
against  them  for  several  years. 

We  must  now  return  to  Athens.  That  state,  though  freed 
from  fear  of  Sparta,  had  a  war  with  Thebes  and  Aegina  still  on  her 
hands,  besides  the  prospect  of  another  with  Persia  impending.  Of 
the  details  of  the  former  struggle  we  unfortunately  know  nothing; 
but  it  cannot  have  been  unsuccessful,  since,  when  the  revolted  Ion- 
ions  sent  Aristagoras  to  beg  for  aid  in  500  b.c,  Athens  was  in  a 
condition  to  spare  a  squadron  of  twenty  ships  for  distant  opera- 
tions on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  This  was  the  expedition  which 
cooperated  with  the  Eretrians  and  Milesians  in  that  unfortunate 
attack  on  Sardis  which  roused  such  wrath  in  Darius.  Probably 
the  vicissitudes  of  the  v^ar  with  Aegina  account  for  the  fact  that, 
except  on  this  one  occasion,  Athens  sent  no  help  to  her  Eastern 
kinsmen ;  for  it  is  impossible  to  find  any  other  reason  for  her  deser- 
tion of  the  lonians,  when  that  people  were  fighting  her  battles  by 
keeping  her  enemy  employed  at  home.  That  the  Athenians  realized 
the  meaning  to  themselves  of  the  failure  of  the  Ionic  revolt  is 
sufficiently  shown  by  their  conduct  in  the  matter  of  Phrynichus's 
play,  "  The  Fall  of  Miletus." 

For  six  years,  however,  the  revolt  In  Asia  Minor  left  the  Per- 
sian no  spare  time  for  interference  with  states  beyond  the  Aegean, 
and  the  respite  was  very  precious  to  Athens.  It  allowed  a  whole 
generation  to  arise  which  had  been  educated  in  a  free  and  demo- 
cratic city,  where  the  traditions  of  tyranny  and  seditious  party 
strife  were  yearly  growing  less  dangerous.  Nothing,  indeed,  could 
have  been  more  fortunate  for  Athens  than  the  course  which  events 
took  in  the  period  510-490  b.c.  The  memory  of  the  deeds  of 
Hippias  and  Isagoras  was  enough  to  make  oligarchy  or  tyranny 
impossible,  while  the  violent  interference  of  Sparta  had  made  men 
associate  in  all  their  thoughts  the  autonomy  of  Athens  and  her 


158  GREECE 

510-490  B.C. 

democratic  constitution,  which  had  been  ahke  threatened  by  foreign 
arms.  Finally,  the  long  war  with  Aegina  hindered  the  Athenians 
from  relapsing  into  their  old  party  quarrels,  by  the  continual  state 
of  tension  in  which  it  kept  them,  and  at  the  same  time  drove 
them  to  become  more  and  more  of  a  naval  power. 

Public  opinion,  not  only  in  Athens,  but  among  enlightened  men 
throughout  Greece,  laid  the  prosperity  of  the  city  to  the  credit  of 
the  constitution  of  Cleisthenes.  "  In  this  Vv-hole  course  of  events," 
writes  Herodotus,  "  it  was  plainly  evident  what  an  excellent  thing 
is  a  democratic  constitution.  For  while  Athens  was  ruled  by  tyrants 
her  citizens  were  no  more  fortunate  in  war  than  their  neighbors, 
but  when  they  were  freed  they  proved  themselves  far  the  best 
soldiers.  This  evidently  came  from  the  fact  that  they  were  slack 
while  they  worked  for  a  master,  but  grew  zealous  when  eveiy  man 
was  fighting  to  defend  his  own  liberty." 

The  twenty  years  510-490  b.c.  were  the  training-school  of 
Athenian  greatness ;  and  the  turn  which  the  history  of  the  subse- 
quent half-century  took  is  only  to  be  explained  when  we  realize  their 
meaning  and  importance.  Nothing  can  illustrate  their  effect  bet- 
ter than  the  influence  which  they  exerted  on  the  character  and  posi- 
tion of  the  three  great  men  whom  Athens  produced  during  this 
epoch. 

Miltiades,  son  of  Cimon,  was  a  man  who,  in  an  earlier  genera- 
tion, would  have  proved  either  an  aspirant  for  tyranny  or  a  bitter 
oligarchic  partisan.  He  sprang  from  one  of  the  oldest  Attic  fami- 
lies, the  Aeacidae,  who  claimed  descent  from  the  Salaminian  Ajax, 
The  wealth  and  influence  of  his  father  were  so  great  that  it  had 
drawn  down  on  him  banishment  at  the  hands  of  Peisistratus,  and 
assassination  from  the  more  reckless  Hippias.  Aliltiades  himself 
had  vv'ithdrawn  from  Athens  to  escape  a  similar  fate,  and  had  suc- 
ceeded to  a  curious  inheritance  in  the  Thracian  Chersonese.  His 
uncle  and  namesake  had,  thirty  years  before,  become  king  of  a  small 
tri]:)e  of  barbarians  named  the  Dolonci,  who  dwelt  upon  the 
shore  of  the  Hellespont.  These  people,  being  oppressed  in 
war  by  their  neighbors,  had,  by  the  advice  of  the  Delphic  oracle, 
taken  a  Greek  for  king.  The  elder  Miltiades  not  only  reigned  over 
them,  but  subdued  by  their  aid  several  small  Greek  cities  in  the 
Thracian  Chersonese,  so  that  he  was  at  once  a  Doloncian  king  and 
a  tyrant  over  Cardia  and  its  Hellenic  neighbors.  In  this  double 
capacity  he  was  succeeded  by  two  nephevvs,   of  whom  his  more 


JEALOUSY    OF    STATES  159 

499-497  B.C. 

famous  namesake  was  the  second.  The  younger  Mihiades  has 
already  met  our  notice,  at  the  moment  when  he  endeavored  to 
persuade  the  other  Greek  vassals  of  Darius  to  destroy  the  Danube 
bridge,  at  the  time  of  that  monarch's  expedition  into  Scythia. 
Wh€n  the  Ionic  revolt  took  place  he  joined  in  it  heartily,  and, 
after  driving  out  the  Persian  garrisons  from  Imbros  and  Lemnos, 
took  his  countrymen  at  home  into  partnership,  and  aided  them  to 
establish  their  third  great  Cleruchy  in  the  conquered  islands  (499 
B.C.).  When,  however,  the  Hellespontine  towns  were  recovered 
by  the  armies  of  the  Great  King  in  497  b.c,  Miltiades  was  com- 
pelled to  fly  from  his  own  little  domain  in  the  Thracian  Chersonese, 
and,  after  a  hairbreadth  escape  from  a  Phoenician  squadron,  which 
chased  his  galleys  across  the  Aegean,  thought  himself  fortunate 
to  reach  Athens  in  safety.  The  people  were  not  ungrateful  for 
the  services  he  had  done  them  in  the  matter  of  Imbros  and  Lemnos, 
and  ere  long  chose  him  as  one  of  the  ten  strategi  of  the  year. 
That  an  ex-tyrant  and  a  member  of  one  of  the  old  oligarchic 
families  could  be  elected  to  the  highest  office  by  the  democracy 
proves  two  things.  The  constitution  of  Cleisthenes  must  have 
obtained  such  a  firm  hold  on  the  esteem  of  the  Athenian  people 
that  they  had  grown  to  regard  it  as  invulnerable  to  the  assaults  of 
any  internal  enemy:  even  a  man  of  the  most  undemocratic  antece- 
dents could  not  harm  it,  though  he  held  one  of  the  chief  magis- 
tracies in  the  state.  Secondly,  Miltiades  himself  must  have  pos- 
sessed no  small  share  of  that  power  of  adapting  one's  self  to  cir- 
cumstances which  formed  such  a  prominent  feature  in  the  Attic 
character.  For  an  independent  sovereign  to  become  a  republican 
official,  and  to  win  high  renown  in  that  capacity,  was  indeed  a 
marvel.  Nevertheless,  Miltiades  had  not  been  brought  up  under 
the  training  of  the  Constitution  of  Cleisthenes — the  Athenians 
never  felt  that  he  was  quite  one  of  themselves — and,  in  spite  of  his 
many  excellent  qualities,  he  could  never  make  himself  so  thoroughly 
the  people's  hero  and  champion  as  two  younger  men  who  came  into 
prominence  at  Athens  about  the  same  time  as  himself. 

These  two  were  Aristeides,  son  of  Lysimachus,  and  Themisto- 
cles,  son  of  Neocles.  Both  were  sprung  from  undistinguished 
families  of  the  middle  class,  and  the  second  was  not  even  of  pure 
Attic  parentage,  his  mother  having  been  a  Carian  woman.  Each, 
therefore,  owed  his  position  to  his  own  ability,  and  only  rose  to 
prominence  through   the  carriere  ouvertc  aiix   talents  which   the 


160  GREECE 

497  B.C. 

democratic  constitution  opened  to  him.  But,  except  in  age  and 
station,  the  two  men  were  as  dissimilar  as  it  is  possible  for  human 
beings  to  be.  Aristeides  won  the  confidence  of  the  Athenian  peo- 
ple by  his  possession  of  those  virtues  which  were  most  wanting  in 
the  national  character.  Themistocles,  on  the  other  hand,  rose  to 
renown  because  he  reproduced  in  their  highest  possible  develop- 
ment all  the  features,  good  and  bad  alike,  of  the  Athenian  dis- 
position. 

The  son  of  Lysimachus  displayed  two  great  and  excellent 
traits.  He  was  rigidly  just  and  honorable,  and  he  was  gifted  with 
the  most  imperturbable  cool-headedness.  The  faults  of  the 
Athenian  democracy  were  precisely  the  reverse  of  these  good 
qualities.  Their  foible  w^as  over-hasty  action,  the  tendency  to  be 
led  astray  in  matters  both  of  right  and  wrong  and  of  expediency 
and  inexpediency  by  the  impulses  of  the  moment.  Hence  they 
learned  by  experience  to  respect  the  one  man  who  was  never  moved 
by  passion  and  prejudice,  but  always  summed  up  clearly  on  the  side 
of  honor  and  justice.  But  ere  he  fully  won  the  confidence  of  his 
countrymen  Aristeides  had  to  undergo  a  rough  probation.  Often 
his  advice  was  scorned,  and  once  he  was  even  ostracized  for  his 
uncompromising  opposition  to  the  policy  which  had  the  momentary 
approbation  of  the  people.  Everyone  has  heard  the  story  of  the 
prejudiced  and  ignorant  voter  who,  on  that  occasion,  gave  his 
voice  for  expulsion,  "  because  he  was  tired  of  always  hearing 
Aristeides  called  '  The  Just.'  "  True  or  false,  the  anecdote  brings 
into  relief  the  pettiness  of  human  nature  and  the  stupid  jealousy 
which  Aristeides  had  to  surmount  before  his  position  grew 
unquestioned. 

The  son  of  Neocles  was  a  man  of  a  very  dift'erent  type.  The 
respectable  talents  of  Aristeides  were  thrown  into  the  shade  by  his 
genius,  but  to  his  rival's  moral  virtues  he  had  nothing  to  oppose. 
The  characteristics,  evil  as  well  as  good,  of  the  Athenian  people 
seemed  incarnate  in  him.  Of  all  statesmen  that  Greece  ever  knew, 
he  was  incomparably  the  most  versatile  and  ingenious.  Thucy- 
dides  says  that  at  unpremeditated  action  there  was  no  one  to  com- 
pare with  him.  With  the  shortest  notice  given,  he  would  always 
hit  on  a  happy  expedient,  and  his  forecasts  of  future  events  were 
wonderfully  accurate.  Nor  did  his  successes  proceed  from  study 
and  long  forethought;  they  were  the  fruits  of  the  untaught  quick- 
ness of  his  intellect.    But  Themistocles's  ready  brains  were  employed 


JEALOUSY   OF    STATES  161 

A93  B.C. 

to  benefit  his  country  only  so  long  as,  while  so  doing,  he  benefited 
himself  also.  If  he  was  patriotic,  his  patriotism  was  merely  a 
larger  kind  of  selfishness,  which  embraced  his  country  as  a  thing 
necessary  to  his  comfort.  Above  all,  he  was  hopelessly  corrupt  in 
money  matters.  He  made  politics  a  paying  trade.  Left  a  patri- 
mony of  three  talents  by  his  father,  he  was  found  to  possess  more 
than  ninety  at  the  moment  of  the  sudden  end  of  his  career  in 
Athens,  and  this  large  fortune  had  been  mainly  accumulated  by 
taking  bribes  from  foreign  states.  That  he  was  nothing  more  than 
an  unscrupulous  adventurer  was  sufficiently  shown  by  the  fact  that, 
when  expelled  from  his  country,  he  promptly  went  over  to  the 
Persians,  and  died  in  the  receipt  of  a  pension  from  King  Arta- 
xerxes.  All  the  vices  of  the  Greek  character  were  indeed  embodied 
in  him — selfishness,  double-dealing,  want  of  political  principle, 
malevolent  jealously,  and  that  love  of  ostentation  which  drives  men 
to  the  acquisition  of  wealth  by  any  means,  whether  dishonorable  or 
fair  and  open.  Yet,  ere  his  faults  were  discovered  by  his  country- 
men, he  had  done  them  benefits  whose  effects  were  unparalleled. 
For  in  the  earlier  days  of  his  life,  when  in  working  for  Athens  he 
also  worked  for  himself,  his  services  to  the  state  were  such  as  no 
statesman,  not  even  Pericles,  was  ever  able  to  surpass. 

It  was  the  necessities  of  the  war  with  Aegina  which  first 
brought  Themistocles  into  prominence.  When  he  obtained  the 
archonship  in  493  b.c.,^  he  persuaded  his  countrymen  to  fortify  the 
Peiraeus  and  make  it  their  naval  arsenal.  Previously  the  Athenian 
harbor  had  been  the  open  roadstead  of  Phalerum,  whose  only 
advantage  was  that  it  lay  on  the  spot  at  which  the  sea  approached 
the  city  most  nearly.  The  Peiraeus  had  been  merely  a  rocky  waste 
peninsula,  undefended  and  unemployed.  Themistocles  saw  its 
capacities,  and  at  his  instigation  it  was  walled  off,  and  made  the 
naval  station  of  the  Athenian  fleet.  For  this  purpose  it  was  admir- 
ably fitted,  presenting  as  it  did  one  large  and  two  smaller  harbors 
all  deep  enough  to  receive  the  largest  ships,  and  yet  so  narrow 
at  their  mouths  that  they  could  be  closed  with  chains  and  booms  so 
as  to  be  perfectly  inaccessible  to  an  enemy.  The  Peiraeus  was 
inconveniently  distant  indeed  (four  miles)  from  Athens,  and  did 
not  lie  so  thoroughly  under  the  eyes  of  all  who  dwelt  in  the  city 
as  did  the  Bay  of  Phalerum;  but  for  safety,  strength,  and  com- 
mercial use  it  was  so  incomparably  superior  that  it  superseded  the 
~  Some  writers  doubt  this  archonship,  but  it  rests  on  good  authority. 


169.  GREECE 

493  B.C. 

older  station  at  once.  In  a  few  years  it  became  a  considerable  town, 
the  headquarters  of  the  most  democratic  section  of  the  Athenian 
people;  for  the  landless  class  flocked  down  in  crowds  to  the  port, 
where  employment  was  easy  to  find,  either  on  shipboard  or  in  con- 
nection with  the  small  industries  which  were  called  into  existence 
by  the  necessities  of  the  seafaring  population.  The  vauTud<;  ir/ko?  of 
the  Peiraeus  grew  ere  long  to  be  a  prominent  factor  in  Athenian 
politics;  for  the  events  of  the  years  which  followed  the  founding 
of  the  new  port  were  such  as  to  bring  forward  in  every  way  the 
importance  of  the  naval  side  of  the  city's  strength. 

In  493  B.  c,  the  very  year  of  Themistocles'  archonship,  the 
hands  of  the  Persian  satraps  of  Asia  Minor  were  once  more  entirely 
free.  The  last  throes  of  the  Ionic  revolt  were  over,  and  the  Great 
King  might  now  send  forth  his  armies  to  renew  the  westward 
progress  which  had  been  interrupted  by  the  rebellion.  To  give  an 
opportunity  for  prompt  submission  to  any  states  which  might  choose 
to  do  homage  without  making  any  attempt  to  defend  themselves, 
Darius  sent  heralds  to  every  city  in  Greece  to  demand  the  customary 
"  earth  and  water."  After  the  affair  of  the  burning  of  Sardis,  the 
Athenians  could  not  hope  for  favorable  treatment  at  the  hands  of 
Persia  ;  but  their  indignant  rejection  of  submission  might  have  taken 
a  less  ferocious  form.  They  cast  the  unfortunate  herald  into  the 
Barathrum,  or  pit  into  which  criminals  were  thrown,  and  bade  him 
take  earth  therefrom.  Themistocles  is  said  to  have  instigated  the 
act,  nor  is  it  out  of  keeping  with  his  character.  It  is  more  surpris- 
ing to  find  the  same  deed  repeated  by  the  self-contained  Spartans. 
Indignant  that  the  first  state  in  Greece  should  be  held  so  lightly  by 
the  king,  they  gave  his  herald  water  by  tossing  him  into  a  well. 
These  two  desperate  defiances  proclaimed  that  it  was  war  to  the 
death  between  Persia  and  the  two  most  resolute  states  in  Greece. 
But  in  other  cities  the  summons  did  not  meet  such  an  answer; 
many  dismissed  the  heralds  with  scorn ;  but  some  gave  the  neces- 
sary pledge,  and  notable  among  these  were  the  Aeginetans,  who 
were  probably  impelled  as  much  by  dislike  of  Athens  as  by  mere 
dread  of  Darius. 

The  submission  of  Aegina  had  an  unexpected  result  in  recon- 
ciling Athens  and  Sparta.  Hearing  of  the  line  which  the  Lacedae- 
monians had  taken  up,  the  Athenians  sent  to  them,  ignoring  old 
grudges,  and  appealed  to  them  to  hinder  the  desertion  of  the  cause 
of  Grecian  freedom,  which  the  Aeginetans  meditated.     Nor  did 


JEALOUSY   OF    STATES  163 

492-490  B.C. 

they  appeal  in  vain.  King  Cleomenes  had  lost  the  memory  of  his 
old  wrath  with  Athens  while  engaged  in  the  subsequent  struggle 
with  Argos,  and  in  a  long  course  of  wrangling  with  his  colleague 
Demaratus.  He  took  up  warmly  the  grievance  against  Aegina,  all 
the  more  so  that  Demaratus  did  the  reverse.  Going  in  person  to 
the  island,  he  declared  there  his  intention  of  coercing  any  traitorous 
attempt  against  the  common  v/eal  of  Greece.  Acting  under  pri- 
vate advice  from  Demaratus,  the  Aeginetans  took  no  notice  of  the 
threat,  and  Cleomenes  returned  in  high  dudgeon  to  Sparta.  There 
he  at  once  put  into  action  a  long-meditated  scheme  against 
his  colleague  and  enemy.  He  laid  against  him  a  charge  of  illegiti- 
macy, and  when  an  appeal  was  made  on  the  point  to  the  Delphic 
Apollo,  a  bribed  oracle  replied  that  Demaratus  was  no  true  son  of 
King  Ariston.  He  was  dethroned  and  superseded  by  Leotychides, 
who  had  been  Cleomenes's  confederate  in  the  plot.  Demaratus  fled 
to  Asia,  and  repaired  to  the  court  of  Darius,  whose  favor  he  won. 
From  that  time  forward  his  return  at  the  head  of  a  Persian  army 
was  a  constant  source  of  dread  to  Cleomenes  and  every  other  Spar- 
tan, and  its  prospect  did  much  to  keep  them  firm  in  their  resistance 
to  the  Great  King. 

When  he  had  thus  provided  himself  with  a  subservient  col- 
league, Cleomenes  swooped  down  on  Aegina.  So  irresistible  did 
he  now  appear,  that  the  Aeginetans  submitted  to  him  without  a 
struggle.  He  bound  them  to  peace  with  Athens,  and,  to  secure  it, 
took  from  them  ten  hostages  of  the  highest  rank,  whom  he  handed 
over  to  the  custody  of  the  Athenians.  Thus  when  the  armies  of 
the  Mede  presented  themselves  on  Attic  soil  two  years  later,  there 
was  no  hostile  power  ready  to  distract  the  defense  by  attacks  in 
the  rear. 

We  have  already  related  how  the  expedition  which  Mardonius 
launched  against  Greece  in  492  b.c.  was  shattered  against  the  rocks 
of  Athos,  and  the  stubborn  resistance  of  the  Thracian  tribes.  Eigh- 
teen months  were  employed  to  gather  a  second  army  and  fleet,  but 
in  the  summer  of  490  b.c.  all  was  ready.  Phoenicia  and  Ionia  had 
furnished  six  hundred  war-galleys,  while  the  land  contingents  of 
the  western  satrapies  mustered  at  Tarsus  under  Artaphernes,  son 
of  that  satrap  of  Lydia  of  whom  we  have  so  frequently  heard, 
Datis  the  Mede  brought  down  from  Susa  a  select  force  recruited 
in  the  far  East,  Thirty-six  nations  were  represented  in  the  com- 
bined army,  from  the  Greeks  of  Ionia  to  the  Sakae  of  Eastern 


164.  GREECE 

490  B.C. 

Tartary,  They  may  well  have  numbered  the  hundred  thousand 
foot  and  ten  thousand  horse  which  are  ascribed  to  them.  Nor 
were  they  without  guidance ;  besides  many  other  Greek  exiles,  there 
sailed  with  them  the  aged  Hippias,  who  now  for  the  last  time  led  a 
hostile  force  against  his  native  country,  that  he  might  win  back  his 
long-lost  tyranny.  The  Peisistratidae  still  numbered  a  few  par- 
tisans at  Athens,  and  the  ex-tyrant  hoped  great  things  from  their 
cooperation. 

It  was  rather  late  in  the  summer  when  the  expedition  went  forth 
to  carry  out  the  behests  of  Darius  by  subduing  all  the  Greeks  who 
had  not  given  him  earth  and  water,  and  more  especially  by  bringing 
before  him  in  chains  those  Eretrians  and  Athenians  who  had 
insulted  his  majesty  by  crossing  the  Aegean  and  burning  his  city  of 
Sardis. 


Chapter    XVIII 

BATTLE  OF  MARATHON  TO  THE  INVASION  OF 

XERXES,  490-480  B.C. 

'ARNED  of  the  dangers  of  the  Thracian  coast  by  the 
great  shipwreck  of  Mardonius's  fleet  in  492  b.c.^  Datis 
and  Artaphernes  steered  straight  across  the  Aegean 
through  the  Cyclades.  Their  great  armament  terrified  the  island- 
ers, most  of  whom  hastened  to  give  earth  and  water  to  the  Great 
King.  The  Naxians,  after  refusing  submission,  took  refuge  in  the 
hill-tops,  abandoning  their  city  to  the  spoiler.  Apparently  they  had 
forgotten  their  own  successful  defense  against  Megabates  and  Aris- 
tagoras  just  twelve  years  before.  Passing  the  holy  island  of 
Delos,  which  they  left  unsacked,  and  treated  with  all  respect,  the 
Persians  came  to  Euboea,  and  landed  not  far  from  Eretria,  the  first 
goal  at  which  they  aimed.  There  was  panic  in  the  city,  and 
although  the  Athenian  "  Cleruchs  "  of  Chalcis  came  to  their  aid, 
the  Eretrians  dared  not  take  the  field.  They  shut  themselves  up 
within  their  walls,  but,  to  the  dismay  of  all  freedom-loving  Greeks, 
the  town  was  betrayed  by  malcontents  from  within  after  a  siege  of 
only  six  days,  and  its  citizens  made  prisoners  en  masse.  Placing 
them  on  shipboard  in  chains,  Datis  and  Artaphernes  coasted  down 
the  Eurlpus  to  Attica.  Hippias  guided  them  to  the  plains  of 
^Marathon,  the  spot  at  which  he  himself  and  his  father  had  landed 
fifty  years  before,  on  their  last  and  most  successful  expedition 
against  Athens.  It  is  not  quite  certain  whether  the  intention  of 
the  Persian  commanders  was  to  march  straight  on  Athens  across  the 
spurs  of  Mount  Brilessus,  as  Peisistratus  had  done,  or  whether,  after 
attracting  the  Athenian  army  to  the  extreme  northeast  limit  of 
Attica,  they  proposed  to  send  troops  round  on  the  fleet  in  order  to 
fall  upon  the  city  when  stripped  of  its  defenders.  The  latter 
scheme,  at  any  rate,  is  suggested  by  the  fact  that  the  few  traitors 
who  existed  in  Athens  had  promised  Hippias  to  give  a  signal  when 
there  was  a  favorable  opportunity  for  attacking  Athens,  by  raising 
a  bright  shield  on  the  summit  of  Mount  Pentelicus. 

165 


166  GREECE 

490  B.C. 

The  sudden  fall  of  Eretria  had  set  Athens  in  a  ferment :  there 
was  no  thong-ht  of  surrender,  but  very  little  of  success.  Tlie  first 
measure  taken  was  to  send  for  instant  aid  to  Sparta.  Philippides, 
a  famous  runner,  took  the  message,  and  sped  along  with  such  good 
will  that  he  reached  Sparta  in  two  days,  though  he  had  no  less  than 
a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  cover.  A  legend  of  the  time  tells 
how  when,  dazed  and  weary,  he  breasted  the  last  Arcadian  moun- 
tain which  separated  him  from  his  goal  in  the  vale  of  the  Eurotas, 
the  god  Pan  suddenly  appeared  before  him,  spoke  words  of  cheer- 
ing import  for  Athens,  and  then  vanished  av/ay.  But  there  was  no 
encouragement  to  be  drawn  from  the  immediate  effect  of  Philip- 
pides's  mission.  The  Spartans  were  honestly  ready  for  the  fight, 
but  the  summons  unfortunately  reached  them  on  the  eve  of  a  great 
festival,  and  such  was  their  reverence  for  tradition  that  they  dared 
not  move  before  the  full  moon  had  come.  Not  till  five  all-important 
days  had  passed  did  their  army  set  out,  and  then  the  crisis  had 
passed. 

Miltiades,  as  we  have  already  mentioned,  was  one  of  the  ten 
strategi  in  the  year  490  b.c,  and  his  rank,  military  experience,  and 
hatred  of  Persia  gave  him  an  undisputed  preeminence  among  his 
colleagues.  When  the  enemy's  landing  had  been  reported,  the 
polemarch  summoned  his  council  of  war,  to  decide  whether  the 
army  should  take  the  field,  or  shut  itself  up  within  the  walls  of  the 
city.  ^Miltiades  chose  the  bolder  plan,  but  five  of  his  coadjutors 
voted  against  it.  It  was  long  remembered  how,  at  that  council  of 
war  which  practically  decided  the  freedom  of  Greece,  Miltiades 
solemnly  rose  when  the  votes  seemed  going  against  him,  and 
adjured  the  archon  Callimachus,  who,  as  polemarch,  had  the  chief 
command  and  the  decisive  vote,  to  take  the  side  of  courage,  pointing- 
out  the  opportunity  wdiich  delay  would  give  to  domestic  traitors, 
and  the  splendid  results  which  immediate  action  would  secure.  It 
seemed  a  desperate  moment  at  which  to  forecast  success,  but  the 
enthusiasm  of  Miltiades  won  over  the  polemarclvs  vote,  and  the 
army  marched  on  Marathon. 

The  site  of  the  coming  battle  was  a  bare  open  plain,  six  miles 
long  by  less  than  two  broad,  which  lies  between  the  lower  spurs  of 
Mount  Pentelicus  and  the  sea.  A  fine  bay  gave  room  for  the  nu- 
merous ships  of  tlie  Persians  to  be  drawn  on  shore;  but  it  v/as  not  at 
every  point  that  access  from  the  beach  to  the  plain  was  possible. 
Two  marshes,  of  which  the  more  northern  is  a  full  mile  long,  lie 


BATTLE     OF     MARATHON 


167 


490   B.C. 

between  the  hills  and  the  sea.  Between  them  was  the  camp  of  the 
invader.  Opposite  him  the  Athenians  were  posted  on  the  steep 
slope  of  the  mountains,  guarding  the  two  roads  w^hich  climb  up 
from  the  level  ground  and  lead  to  Athens.  Their  headquarters 
were  in  a  sacred  enclosure  dedicated  from  time  immemorial  to 
Heracles,  a  position  from  which  they  easily  overlooked  the  hostile 
camp.  They  mustered  about  nine  thousand  hoplites,  besides  a  con- 
siderable number  of  slaves  equipped  as  light-armed  troops.  When, 
however,  they  had  already  reached  Marathon,  they  received  an  unex- 
pected accession  to  their  strength  by  the  arrival  of  the  whole  dis- 


posable force  of  the  little  town  of  Plataea,  a  thousand  hoplites  more. 
Athens  had  twice  taken  arms  to  defend  Plataea  from  being  swal- 
lowed up  by  the  Boeotian  League,  and  now  the  smaller  state  sent 
out  its  full  contingent  to  share  the  fate  of  the  Athenians  in  their 
apparently  hopeless  struggle  with  Persia. 

It  is  probable  that  Aliltiades  expected  at  first  to  be  attacked  by 
the  Persians  in  his  position ;  but  when  the  enemy  stayed  four  or  five 
days  without  an  advance,  probably  awaiting  the  promised  signal 
from  the  partisans  of  Hippias  in  Athens,  he  determined  to  take  the 
ofifensive  himself.     He  quietly  got  his  men  into  order  and  prepared 


168  GREECE 

490  B.C. 

for  action.  The  Athenians  were  ranged  in  a  line,  of  which  the 
center  was  only  a  few  files  deep,  while  the  wings  were  composed  of 
deep,  heavy  columns.  The  polemarch  Callimachus  headed  the  right 
wing;  Aristeides  took  the  weak  center,  which  was  composed  of  his 
own  tribe,  the  Antiochis,  and  the  Leontis;  while  the  Plataeans 
formed  the  extreme  left.  Then  at  Miltiades's  word,  the  whole 
started  down  the  hill  at  a  run.  There  was  a  mile  to  cover  before 
the  Persian  camp  was  reached,  and  though  the  slope  added  momen- 
tum to  the  charge,  the  long  distance  must  have  disordered  the 
ranks.  Probably,  as  in  all  cases  where  a  line  advances  in  haste, 
the  flanks  gained  ground  on  the  center,  so  that  the  army  must  have 
assumed  a  crescent  shape  ere  the  moment  at  which  it  crashed  into 
the  Persian  host.  Datis  and  Artaphernes  had  not  been  expecting  a 
battle  at  that  moment;  it  would  seem  that  their  cavalry  was  on  ship- 
board, ready  to  start  for  the  projected  attack  on  Athens  from  the 
west,  and  that  the  rest  of  the  army  was  preparing  for  embarkation. 
But  they  had  not  neglected  to  keep  watch  while  in  presence  of  the 
enemy,  and  despite  the  suddenness  of  Miltiades's  attack,  were  able 
to  form  up  some  sort  of  a  line  in  front  of  their  camp.  The  Per- 
sians and  Sacae  held  the  center,  the  post  of  honor,  the  subject  tribes 
the  two  wings.  All,  however,  must  have  been  still  in  disarray  when 
the  moment  of  the  shock  came.  At  the  first  the  enemy  had  regarded 
the  Athenians  as  madmen,  when  they  came  storming  down  the 
hill  to  attack  in  the  open  a  force  of  ten  times  their  own  number. 
But  when  the  barbarians  found  the  line  of  pikes  rolling  down  upon 
them  with  all  the  momentum  of  a  mile's  run  downhill,  while  they 
themselves  were  caught  hurriedly  forming  their  array,  they  must 
have  recognized  that  there  was  a  method  in  the  madness. 

What  the  decisive  shock  would  bring  no  one  knew.  The 
Persian  had  so  often  worsted  the  Greek  in  battle  that  the  Athenians 
must  have  felt  that  their  charge  was  little  less  than  desperate.  But 
they  did  not  shrink  from  it,  and  they  had  their  reward.  The  heavy 
columns  which  formed  their  w'ings  crashed  through  the  barbarian 
multitude  as  if  it  had  been  a  flock  of  sheep.  The  light-armed 
Orientals  were  riven  asunder  and  trodden  underfoot  by  the  mailed 
hoplites.  The  Persian  right  wing  was  thrown  into  the  swamp  at 
the  north  end  of  the  beach,  where  many  perished ;  the  rest  fled  with 
the  left  wing  to  the  ships,  and  began  to  thrust  them  out  to  sea.  In 
the  center,  indeed,  the  battle  was  for  a  time  doubtful,  and  the  native 
Persians  began  to  push  back  the  thin  line  where  Aristeides  com- 


BATTLE    OF    MARATHON  169 

490  B.C. 

manded.  But  the  Athenian  wings  turned  to  aid  their  overmatched 
countr3'men,  and  when  the  barbarians  saw  themselves  attacked  on 
both  flanks  they  gave  way,  and  retreated  seawards  Hke  their  fel- 
lows. Meanwhile  most  of  the  ships  were  afloat,  and  the  rest  were 
being  launched  as  the  flying  troops  sprang  on  board.  A  severe 
struggle  now  raged  along  the  beach,  for  the  Athenians  strove  to 
capture  the  belated  vessels,  and  the  barbarians  to  get  them  out  to 
sea.  Here  fell  the  polemarch  Callimachus,  and  with  him  Cyne- 
geirus,  brother  of  the  poet  Aeschylus,  whose  hands  were  hacked  off 
as  he  clung  desperately  to  the  poop-staff  of  a  galley  which  was  just 
being  thrust  off  from  the  shallows.  At  last  the  contest  was  ended 
by  the  escape  of  the  fleet,  which  left,  however,  seven  vessels  on 
shore  in  the  power  of  the  Athenians. 

Just  at  this  moment  the  bright  shield  was  hoisted  on  Pentel- 
icus  by  the  traitors  in  Athens,  who  had  promised  to  give  Hippias 
information  when  there  was  a  favorable  opportunity  for  attacking 
the  city.  It  was  seen  by  Datis  and  Artaphernes,  who  in  spite  of 
their  defeat  resolved  to  make  the  preconcerted  attempt.  But  Alilti- 
ades  also  had  observed  the  signal,  and  divined  its  meaning.  When, 
therefore,  the  Persian  fleet  appeared  off  Phalerum,  after  rounding 
the  south  point  of  Attica,  it  was  found  that  the  Athenians  who  had 
fought  at  Marathon  had  already  returned  by  a  forced  march,  and 
were  drawn  up  ready  for  a  second  battle  on  the  slope  outside  the 
southern  wall  of  the  city.  They  were  plainly  visible  from  the 
sea,  and,  with  a  routed  and  cowed  army,  Datis  and  Artaphernes 
did  not  care  to  venture  on  another  disembarkation.  They  turned 
back  and  sailed  for  Asia,  utterly  abandoning  the  expedition. 
Their  Eretrian  prisoners  were  sent  up  to  Susa,  where  they  served 
to  prove  that  the  Greeks  from  beyond  the  sea  had  not  gone  alto- 
gether unpunished.  Darius  treated  them  more  kindly  than  might 
have  been  expected,  giving  them  lands  in  Elam,  where  their 
descendants  were  long  afterwards  to  be  traced. 

The  battle  of  Marathon  was  more  notable  for  its  moral  effect 
than  its  carnage.  Of  the  Persians,  6400  had  fallen,  no  very  great 
loss  out  of  an  army  of  100,000  men.  The  Athenians  counted  up 
192  hoplites  who  had  been  slain,  besides  some  of  the  Plataeans  and 
of  the  light-armed  slaves.  Three  great  tumuli  were  reared  over 
the  bodies  of  the  victors,  on  the  largest  of  which — the  one  which 
covered  the  Athenian  hoplites — were  erected  ten  pillars,  one  for 
each  of  the  tribes,  bearing  the  names  of  the  fallen. 


170  GREECE 

490  B.C. 

To  the  Persians  the  battle  had  seemed  nothing  very  extraor- 
dinary; the  armies  of  the  Great  King  had  received  many  more 
crushing  defeats,  yet  everything  had  been  repaired  afterwards. 
But  to  the  Athenians  their  victory  was  a  new  revelation;  like  all 
other  Greeks,  they  had  been  accustomed  to  regard  the  Persian 
power  as  invincible,  and  to  look  forward  to  almost  certain  disaster 
when  facing  it.  Their  unfortunate  expedition  to  Sardis  had  con- 
firmed them  in  this  opinion,  and  it  was  only  a  desperate  resolve  to 
defend  their  cherished  freedom  which  had  nerved  them  to  resist- 
ance. When,  therefore,  they  looked  the  danger  in  the  face,  and 
found  it  so  much  less  than  they  had  supposed,  the  revulsion  of 
feeling  was  enormous.  They  had  measured  themselves  with  the 
conquerors  of  the  East,  and  had  found  that,  man  for  man,  and 
army  for  army,  they  were  far  superior.  Such  a  victory,  coming  at 
the  end  of  the  series  of  struggles  against  odds  which  they  had  lived 
through  since  the  expulsion  of  the  Peisistratidae,  nerved  the  Athe- 
nians to  exertions  such  as  few  states  have  ever  known.  It  was  the 
enthusiastic  self-confidence  which  Marathon  gave  that  enabled 
them  to  bear  so  cheerfully  the  trials  of  the  invasion  of  Xerxes,  and 
afterwards  to  strike  so  boldly  for  the  empire  of  the  seas. 

The  immediate  consequences  of  the  battle  in  Greek  politics 
were  incalculable.  If  the  Athenians  had  been  beaten  at  Marathon, 
there  is  little  reason  to  doubt  that  Boeotia,  Aegina,  Argos,  and 
other  Greek  states,  whose  national  traditions  made  them  hostile 
to  Sparta  and  Athens,  would  have  submitted  to  the  Persian.  Nor 
can  we  feel  any  certainty  that  the  Lacedaemonians  w^ould  have 
been  able  to  make  a  successful  resistance  in  the  Peloponnese. 
The  freedom  of  Greece,  therefore,  had  depended  on  the  bold  resolu- 
tion of  Miltiades  and  the  steady  onset  of  his  devoted  army. 

We  have  already  mentioned  the  foolish  superstition  which  had 
prevented  the  Spartans  from  arriving  in  time  to  join  in  the  battle 
of  Marathon.  When  the  fateful  full  moon  came,  indeed,  they  sent 
out  two  thousand  citizens,  with  their  usual  contingents  of  Perioeci 
and  Helots — a  force  considerable  enough  to  have  been  of  the 
greatest  aid  to  Miltiades.  But  though  they  marched  the  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  in  three  days,  the  Spartans  came  too  late  for  the 
battle,  and  after  viewing  the  field  strewn  with  the  bodies  of  the 
slain  barbarians,  they  were  constrained,  as  Herodotus  says,  to  praise 
the  y\thenians  and  their  deeds,  and  then  to  betake  themselves  home 
again. 


BATTLE     OF     MARATHON  171 

490  B.C. 

The  result  of  the  battle  raised  the  man  who  had  so  boldly 
prophesied  success,  and  won  it,  to  a  pitch  of  popularity  such  as  no 
other  Athenian  ever  knew.  Unfortunately  Miltiades  chose  to  abuse 
his  opportunity.  After  no  long  time  had  passed,  he  came  before  the 
assembly,  and  promised  to  place  the  state  in  the  way  of  acquiring 
great  wealth  and  advantage,  if  he  was  entrusted  with  seventy 
ships  and  a  corresponding  land  force,  to  employ  as  he  might  choose. 
The  people  blindly  voted  the  armament,  which  Miltiades  turned  to 
avenge  a  private  grudge  which  he  owed  to  the  inhabitants  of  Paros. 
He  sailed,  without  declaration  of  war,  against  that  fertile  island, 
and,  landing  on  it,  demanded  a  hundred  talents  as  a  fine  for  the 
submission  to  the  Persians,  of  which  the  Parians,  like  the  other 
islanders,  had  been  guilty.  The  blackmail  was  denied  him,  and 
he  proceeded  to  lay  siege  to  the  town  of  Paros.  All  his  efforts  were 
fruitless,  and,  beginning  to  dread  the  reception  which  awaited  him 
at  Athens  in  the  event  of  failure,  he  endeavored  to  bribe  the 
priestess  of  Demeter  to  betray  the  city.  While  holding  a  secret 
interview  with  her  by  night  without  the  walls,  he  was  startled,  and 
as  he  hastily  made  off,  disabled  himself  by  tearing  open  his  thigh 
on  a  stake.  The  armament  returned  to  Athens,  where  Miltiades 
was  received  with  wild  anger  for  his  semi-piratical  expedition,  and 
still  more  for  the  way  in  which  he  had  abused  the  confidence  of  the 
people.  He  was  tried  before  the  Heliaea,  though  he  had  to  be 
brought  into  court  on  a  litter,  dying  from  his  wound,  which  had 
gangrened.  His  accuser  was  Xanthippus,  the  father  of  Pericles, 
who  demanded  that  the  penalty  of  death  should  be  inflicted.  But, 
mindful  of  Marathon,  the  people  contented  themselves  with  in- 
flicting a  fine  of  fifty  talents,  which  Miltiades  did  not  live  to  pay, 
for  he  died  within  a  few  days.  His  son  Cimon,  however,  after- 
wards discharged  the  debt,  in  order  to  clear  the  reputation  of  his 
father  so  far  as  he  was  able.  Thus  a  man  who  seemed  destined  to 
play  a  great  part  in  the  affairs  of  Greece  was  suddenly  removed 
from  the  scene  within  a  few  months  of  the  splendid  achievement 
which  has  forever  preserved  his  name. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  the  expedition  which  failed  so  egre- 
giously  at  Marathon  would  have  been  followed  up  by  another  and 
a  larger  armament  if  the  hands  of  King  Darius  had  been  free. 
The  first  disappointment,  indeed,  had  irritated  him,  without  in- 
ducing him  to  reconsider  his  purpose  of  destroying  Athens,  and 
he  determined  to  lead  the  whole  force  of  his  empire  against  her 


172  GREECE 

490-487  B.C. 

himself.  But  in  487  B.C.  a  revolt  broke  out  in  Egypt,  which  obliged 
him  to  turn  his  arms  in  that  direction.  After  nominating  as  his 
colleague  his  favorite  son  Xerxes,  the  old  king  set  out  against  the 
rebels;  but  died  on  the  way,  after  a  reign  of  thirty-six  years  (521- 
486  B.C.).  The  disturbances  at  the  end  of  his  reign  and  the  fruit- 
lessness  of  his  expedition  against  Scythia  must  not  lead  us  to  under- 
value him.  He  preserved  and  made  permanent  an  empire  which 
seemed  on  the  eve  of  disappearing;  he  showed  a  genius  for  organ- 
ization unparalleled  among  Eastern  conquerors,  and  was,  in  addi- 
tion, no  mean  general.  Considering  his  position  as  an  Oriental 
monarch,  he  must  be  pronounced  moderate,  just,  and  merciful;  the 
history  of  his  son  sufficiently  shows  the  freaks  of  cruelty  and  arro- 
gance which  were  natural  to  a  Persian  autocrat,  but  from  such  faults 
Darius  was  conspicuously  free.  With  his  death  the  expansion  of 
the  Achaemenian  monarchy  came  to  an  end.  In  an  Oriental  state 
everything  depends  on  the  character  of  the  sovereign,  and  for  the 
next  two  centuries  Persia  was  cursed  with  a  succession  of  tyrants 
or  weaklings  who  gradually  ruined  the  excellent  administrative 
system  which  their  ancestor  had  established.  Nothing,  indeed, 
save  the  ingenuity  of  that  system  could  have  preserved  their  empire 
for  the  long  period  which  intervenes  between  the  death  of  Darius 
and  the  invasion  of  Alexander  the  Great. 

Meanwhile  the  Egyptian  war  and  the  decease  of  Darius  gave 
Greece  ten  years  of  respite  from  Persian  invasion — years  which 
were  all-important  as  covering  the  period  during  which  Athens 
transformed  herself  into  a  predominantly  naval  power,  during  the 
second  great  struggle  with  the  Aeginetans.  This  war  w^as  brought 
about  by  the  fall  of  Cleomenes  at  Sparta,  and  the  consequent 
cessation  of  the  anti-Aeginetan  policy  which  he  had  imposed  on 
his  countrymen.  It  was  apparently  in  490  B.C.  that  his  bribery  of 
the  Delphic  oracle  in  the  matter  of  Demaratus  came  to  light ;  as 
a  consequence  of  the  discovery  he  found  himself  forced  to  quit 
Sparta,  like  the  colleague  whom  he  had  ruined  so  shortly  before. 
But  no  such  distant  prospect  of  vengeance  as  was  afforded  by 
taking  refuge  in  Persia  satisfied  Cleomenes.  Passing  into  Arcadia, 
he  began  to  form  an  anti-Spartan  league  among  the  numerous 
cities  of  that  district.  The  success  with  which  he  met  frightened 
the  ephors,  who  offered  him  restitution  of  his  kingly  office  if  he 
would  return  home.  He  accepted  their  terms  and  appeared  again 
in  Sparta,  but  within  a  few  months  perished  in  a  somewhat  mys- 


BATTLE     OF     MARATHON  173 

490-487  B.C. 

terious  manner.  His  conduct  had  often  been  eccentric,  and  this 
gave  the  ephors  an  excuse  for  charging  him  with  madness,  and 
placing  him  in  the  stocks  as  a  raving  lunatic.  One  day  he  was 
found  dead,  horribly  mangled  with  a  knife;  it  was  given  out  that 
he  had  committed  suicide,  but  considering  his  relations  with  the 
ephors,  his  end  appears  decidedly  suspicious.  Throughout  his 
career  he  had  displayed  vigor  and  capacity,  but  his  character  was  so 
fickle  and  wrong-headed  that  his  talents  brought  him  no  final  suc- 
cess. He  is  chiefly  noteworthy  as  being  the  last  king  of  Sparta 
who  fought  on  equal  terms  with  the  College  of  Ephors,  and  made 
his  own  personality  a  more  important  element  in  state  matters 
than  their  desires. 

Cleomenes  was  no  sooner  dead  than  the  Aeginetans  claimed 
their  hostages  who  had  been  interned  at  Athens.  The  Athenians, 
however,  refused  to  give  them  up,  though  Leotychides,  who  had 
joined  Cleomenes  in  the  original  delivery  of  the  prisoners,  came  in 
person  to  plead  for  their  release.  This  conduct  on  the  part  of 
Athens  was  unjustifiable,  but  it  was  met  by  a  still  more  flagrant 
breach  of  international  law.  An  Aeginetan  squadron  lay  in  wait 
off  Sunium,  and  captured  a  vessel  which  was  carrying  a  secret 
embassy  from  Athens.  This  led  to  a  declaration  of  war,  and  a 
lively  struggle  at  sea  for  the  mastery  of  the  Saronic  Gulf.  The 
Athenians  endeavored  to  foment  a  civil  war  in  Aegina,  entering 
into  a  conspiracy  with  a  prominent  citizen  named  Nicodromus,  who 
had  formed  a  plot  to  overthrow  the  oligarchy  which  ruled  in  his 
native  place,  as  it  did  in  all  Dorian  towns.  They  were  still  too 
weak  to  face  the  Aeginetan  fleet  unaided,  so  sent  to  ask  for  help 
from  Corinth,  where  a  traditional  hatred  of  Aegina  prevailed.  The 
Corinthians  did  not  openly  engage  in  the  war,  but  helped  the  Athe- 
nians by  selling  them  twenty  war-galleys  for  the  ridiculous  price 
of  five  drachmae  apiece.  On  a  preconcerted  day  Nicodromus 
raised  a  democratic  revolt,  and  endeavored  to  seize  Aegina  at  the 
head  of  his  partisans;  but  the  Athenian  fleet,  which  he  expected, 
came  too  late  to  bring  him  aid,  and  his  followers  were  completely 
defeated.  A  frightful  massacre  followed,  seven  hundred  of  the 
democratic  party  being  put  to  death  in  cold  blood  after  they  had 
surrendered.  Next  day  the  Athenian  fleet,  seventy  vessels  strong, 
came  up,  and  had  the  better  in  a  naval  engagement  with  the  Aegi- 
netan squadron,  but  on  approaching  the  shore  found  no  supporters, 
on  account  of  the  extermination  of  the  party  of  Nicodromus. 


174.  GREECE 

490-487  B.C. 

Aegina  now  sought  aid  at  Argos,  and  obtained  much  the  same 
kind  of  informal  assistance  which  Athens  had  found  at  Corinth. 
Argos  was  still  too  weak,  after  the  frightful  disaster  she  had 
sustained  at  the  hands  of  Cleomenes,  to  engage  in  open  war  with 
a  first-class  power.  But  a  thousand  Argive  volunteers  joined  the 
Aeginetan  army  without  any  objection  being  raised  by  the  govern- 
ment. Shortly  afterwards  the  Athenians  made  a  second  attack 
on  Aegina,  but  though  their  army  won  a  considerable  victory  on 
shore,  and  slew  off  well-nigh  all  the  Argive  volunteers,  their  fleet 
was  decidedly  worsted,  and  was  compelled  to  pick  up  the  land  force 
and  retire  to  the  Peiraeus.  A  war  of  irregular  descents  followed, 
in  which  each  party  saw  its  coast  districts  ravaged,  but  suffered  no 
worse  harm  at  the  hands  of  the  enemy. 

It  was  during  the  progress  of  this  war  that  an  important  politi- 
cal change  was  introduced  into  the  Athenian  constitution,  which  was 
destined  to  modify  to  some  extent  the  arrangements  of  Cleisthenes. 
Down  to  487  B.C.,  the  annually  elected  archons,  the  chosen  of  the 
whole  people,  were  indisputably  the  greatest  magistrates  of  the 
state.  But  in  that  year  the  archonship  ceased  to  be  elective,  and 
was  in  future  conferred  by  lot.  The  arrangement  was  not  the  old 
one  which  Solon  had  devised,  that  the  tribes  should  select  forty 
men,  between  whom  the  lot  should  make  decision.  This  time  there 
was  to  be  no  preliminary  selection  of  candidates,  and  the  verdict 
of  chance  was  left  untouched.  The  measure,  however,  was  not 
quite  so  wild  as  it  appears  at  first  sight.  It  was  still  only  the 
wealthy  "  Pentekosiomedimni  "  who  were  eligible  for  the  office,  so 
that  there  was  as  yet  no  chance  of  an  archon  being  a  pauper 
subsidized  by  some  rich  wire-puller.  Moreover,  the  lots  were  not 
cast  between  the  whole  body  of  Athenians,  but  only  between  those 
who  chose  to  come  forward  as  candidates.  It  was  fair  to  assume 
that  any  man  who  offered  himself  for  an  office  which  was  laborious, 
responsible,  and  unremunerative,  would  be  possessed  of  energy  and 
public  spirit.  That  he  would  not  be  a  notorious  evil-liver  was 
secured  by  the  process  known  as  "  Dokimasia,"  or  examination 
into  the  character  and  past  life  of  candidates,  in  which  all  who  were 
esteemed  disreputable  were  struck  out  of  the  competition.  In  addi- 
tion, the  office  was  not  now  what  it  had  once  been,  being  cramped 
by  the  privileges  of  the  new  strategi  and  still  more  by  the  enlarged 
powers  of  the  Ecclesia.  It  might  be  discharged  fairly  well  by  any- 
one of  good  average  intelligence,  probity,  and  decision.     For  some 


BATTLE    OF    MARATHON  176 

490-487  B.C. 

time  after  the  change  men  of  high  poHtical  standing  continued  to 
present  themselves  to  encounter  the  hazard  of  the  lot.  As  long,  in 
fact,  as  no  one  but  politicians  of  some  weight  engaged  in  the 
struggle,  there  was  enough  probability  of  success  to  encourage  a 
man  who  had  some  regard  for  his  dignity  to  enter  for  it.  It  was 
not  till  the  archonship  was  opened  to  the  lower  classes,  or  till  men 
of  no  weight  or  standing  began  to  come  forward  as  candidates, 
that  the  office  sank  into  a  mere  ornamental  figure-head  of  the  ship 
of  state,  while  the  real  administrative  power  passed  to  the  strategi. 

For  it  was  the  strategi — who  still  were  elected  by  the  direct 
vote  of  the  people — that  reaped  the  benefit  of  the  degradation  of  the 
archonship.  As  representing  the  choice  of  the  voters,  they  natu- 
rally came  to  be  regarded  as  more  serious  persons  than  the  archons, 
who  were  now  mere  children  of  chance.  It  could  not  be  expected, 
for  example  that  ten  capable  military  officers  would  any  longer 
obey  a  polemarch  who  might  be  entirely  ignorant  of  the  rudiments 
of  warlike  experience.  Hence  the  strategi  came  ere  long  to  assume 
some  of  the  functions  which  had  been  peculiar  to  the  archonate; 
they  gained  power  to  convoke  the  Ecclesia,  and  habitually  con- 
ducted relations  with  foreign  states  before  they  were  submitted  to 
the  Ecclesia  for  ratification.  While  the  archons  fell  into  the  back- 
ground, the  strategi  became  a  kind  of  ministry,  who  managed  the 
chief  departments  of  the  state,  under  the  constant  and  jealous  con- 
trol of  the  Assembly. 

This  indecisive  prolongation  of  the  Aeginetan  war  occasioned 
much  dissatisfaction  at  Athens,  and  led  to  a  vigorous  attempt  to 
put  down  Aegina  by  swamping  her  navy  by  force  of  numbers. 
Themistocles  was  the  author  of  this  scheme,  as  he  had  previously 
been  of  the  fortification  of  the  Peiraeus.  It  happened  one  year 
that  the  state  had  realized  a  very  considerable  surplus  from  the 
silver  mines  of  Laurium,  which  were  public  property.  One  hun- 
dred talents  lay  in  the  treasury,  and  were  about  to  be  dispersed  in 
a  very  primitive  way,  each  adult  Athenian  citizen  having  been 
promised  ten  drachmae.  Themistocles  stood  up  in  the  Ecclesia 
and  boldly  proposed  that  the  money  should  not  be  distributed,  but 
applied  entirely  to  the  building  of  new  ships  of  war,  till  the  national 
fleet  should  number  two  hundred  vessels.  His  eloquence  persuaded 
the  people  to  this  piece  of  self-denial  and  far-sighted  policy.  New 
keels  were  at  once  laid  down,  and  the  richer  citizens  vied  with  each 
other  in  the  rapidity  and  completeness  with  which  they  equipped 


176  GREECE 

487-483  B.C. 

the  vessels  whose  construction  had  been  imposed  as  a  "  liturgy  " 
on  them.  The  energetic  work  of  three  years  tripled  the  Athenian 
navy,  and  ere  long  Themistocles  was  able  to  view  within  the  har- 
bors of  Peiraeus  a  number  of  vessels  as  large  as  the  combined  fleets 
of  Aegina  and  Corinth.  The  policy  which  aimed  at  turning  the 
whole  of  the  energies  of  Athens  towards  the  sea  did  not  pass  with- 
out opposition.  A  considerable  party  in  the  state,  headed  by  no 
less  a  personage  than  Aristeides,  held  that  naval  supremacy  was  a 
thing  so  fleeting  and  uncertain  that  it  was  unwise  to  sacrifice  all 
other  ends  at  which  the  city  might  aim  in  the  endeavor  to  secure  so 
problematical  an  advantage.  It  was  urged  that  the  skill  of  the 
seaman  was  a  less  firm  basis  for  the  state  than  the  valor  of  the  hop- 
lite,  and  that  the  influx  of  foreign  population  and  foreign  manners, 
which  would  follow  on  a  perseverance  of  Themistocles's  designs, 
would  introduce  an  element  of  corruption  and  weakness  in  the  city. 
The  lavish  expenditure  of  public  money  and  heavy  taxation  which 
were  now  commencing,  in  spite  of  the  surplus  from  the  mines, 
frightened  the  more  cautious  of  the  citizens.  Aristeides  set  himself 
to  check  it  by  repeatedly  challenging  the  accounts  of  the  public 
officers  through  whose  hands  the  money  was  passing;  he  succeeded 
in  proving  several  instances  of  embezzlement,  and  is  said  to  have 
molested  even  Themistocles  himself.  At  last  the  struggle  between 
the  two  statesmen  and  their  policies  grew  so  hot  that  recourse  was 
had  to  the  ostracism.  A  decisive  majority  decreed  the  honorable 
exile  of  Aristeides,  and  the  advocate  of  a  quiet  and  conservative 
policy  was  compelled  to  go  into  banishment  (483  b.c). 

Themistocles  had  now  a  free  hand,  and  was  able  to  direct  the 
course  of  the  state  without  meeting  with  any  opposition.  Under 
his  guidance  the  works  by  the  sea  were  carried  out  with  the  greatest 
energy;  the  Peiraeus,  though  but  ten  years  since  it  had  been  a  mere 
barren  headland,  was  already  growing  into  a  considerable  town, 
where  the  sea-going  and  mercantile  interests  reigned  supreme.  Its 
population  formed  a  body  of  no  inconsiderable  importance  in  poli- 
tics, and  a  fertile  field  for  the  democratic  propaganda  of  the  party 
in  the  state  which  was  opposed  to  the  old  aristocratic  doctrines  of 
class-privilege  and  unaggressive  foreign  policy.  The  two  hundred 
triremes  had  been  built,  and  Athens  was  already  in  the  possession 
of  the  strongest  navy  which  any  single  Greek  state  had  ever  owned, 
when  once  more  clouds  began  to  arise  from  tlie  East.  The  young 
King  Xerxes  had  now  been  sitting  for  five  years  on  the  throne  of 


BATTLE     OF     MARATHON  177 

483-481   B.C. 

Persia ;  he  had  successfully  put  down  the  Egyptian  revolt  which  had 
vexed  the  last  days  of  his  father,  and  was  free  to  turn  the  undivided 
strength  of  his  empire  against  any  foe  whom  he  might  choose. 
The  traditions  of  Persia  pointed  to  foreign  conquest  as  the  noblest 
occupation  and  truest  glory  of  the  Great  King,  and  Xerxes  was  not 
insensible  to  their  influence.  Personally,  indeed,  he  was  but  a 
mediocrity.  The  fair  and  stately  face  and  form  which  seemed  to 
mark  him  as  a  king  of  men  were  belied  by  his  intellectual  feebleness 
and  moral  instability.  His  whole  character  was  that  of  the  mere 
harem-bred  Eastern  despot,  and  no  spark  of  his  father's  genius  in- 
spired his  actions.  Vain  and  luxurious,  indolently  good-natured, 
but  capable  of  sudden  and  savage  outbursts  of  cruelty,  easily  swayed 
by  a  courtier  or  a  sultana,  by  no  means  fond  of  exposing  his  sacred 
person  to  the  hazards  of  battle,  he  seemed  extremely  unlikely  to 
leave  his  name  associated  with  one  of  the  greatest  events  of  history. 
But  though  the  man  was  weak,  his  position  was  strong;  if  no  better 
motives  could  stir  him  to  action,  his  vanity  could  not  suffer  him  to 
fall  behind  the  achievements  of  his  predecessors.  A  warlike  race 
of  subjects  expected  him  to  lead  them  to  new  conquests;  an  enemy 
who  had  routed  his  father's  armies  stood  before  him  inviting  chas- 
tisement and  revenge ;  Demaratus  of  Sparta,  and  other  exiles  from 
beyond  the  Aegean,  thronged  his  court,  and  were  continually  point- 
ing out  the  weakness  and  divisions  of  their  land :  small  wonder, 
then,  if  this  arrogant  despot  was  led  into  his  famous  campaign 
against  the  Greeks. 

Greek  legend  adorned  the  story  of  the  commencement  of  the 
design  of  Xerxes  with  many  striking  details,  into  the  credibility  of 
which  there  is  no  need  to  make  inquiry.  But  this  much  is  un- 
doubted, that  by  the  spring  of  481  B.C.  all  Asia  was  astir  with 
preparations  for  the  invasion  of  the  lands  beyond  the  Aegean.  The 
king  had  declared  his  intention  of  leading  the  armament  in  person, 
and  the  whole  scale  of  the  undertaking  was  to  be  very  different  from 
that  of  the  comparatively  modest  expedition  of  Datis  and  Arta- 
phernes.  Not  only  the  Western  satrapies,  but  the  remotest  prov- 
inces of  inner  Asia  were  ordered  to  provide  contingents;  every 
maritime  town  in  the  Levant  that  owned  the  authority  of  the 
Great  King  had  its  quota  of  ships  appointed.  The  cities  of  the 
Hellespont  and  Thrace  were  directed  to  collect  magazines  of  every 
kind  of  provision  on  the  largest  scale  for  the  army.  The  whole 
Persian  empire  had  for  some  time  been  ringing  with  preparation. 


178  GREECE 

481   B.C. 

and  the  rumor  of  tlie  coming-  storm  must  have  already  reached 
Greece,  when  Xerxes  dispatched  his  herald  to  make  the  formal 
demand  for  earth  and  water  which  was  to  serve  him  as  a  casus 
belli.  Only  to  Athens  and  Sparta  was  no  sumimxons  sent ;  the  brutal 
treatment  which  the  Persian  messengers  had  received  in  those 
towns,  ten  years  before,  had  put  them  beyond  the  pale  of  repent- 
ance. To  all  other  states  the  heralds  went,  nor  was  their  mission 
altogether  without  effect. 

With  the  certain  prospect  of  an  invasion  by  the  innumerable 
hordes  of  Asia  before  them,  the  Greeks  drew  together  wnth  an 
unw^onted  unanimity.  The  idea  of  a  Pan-Hellenic  Union  had 
already  been  dimly  shadowed  forth  in  the  predominance  of  Sparta 
in  the  Peloponnese;  and  Sparta,  as  one  of  the  two  states  against 
whom  the  Persian  attack  was  more  especially  directed,  had  now 
every  motive  to  encourage  her  confederates  to  bind  themselves 
more  closely  to  her.  Athens  had  even  stronger  reasons  for  en- 
deavoring to  bring  about  a  union  against  the  invader;  she  w^as 
not  only  destitute  of  allies,  but  was  still  engaged  in  her  protracted 
war  with  Aegina.  Accordingly  it  is  not  strange  to  find  that  The- 
mistocles  was  the  statesman  to  whom,  in  connection  with  one 
Chileus  of  Tegea,  the  convocation  of  delegates  from  the  greater 
number  of  the  states  of  European  Greece  was  due.  These  repre- 
sentatives met,  late  in  the  summer  of  481  B.C.,  at  the  Isthmus  of 
Corinth,  under  Spartan  presidency.  The  gathering  was  larger 
than  men  of  a  desponding  frame  of  mind  could  have  hoped  to  see. 
It  is  true  the  two  powers  of  the  first  magnitude,  Argos  and  Thebes, 
had  failed  to  respond  to  the  summons — actuated,  the  one  by  her 
ancient  rivalry  wnth  Sparta,  the  other  by  her  jealousy  of  the  rising 
power  of  Athens.  But  well-nigh  all  the  other  states  of  continental 
Greece  appeared  by  their  delegates  on  the  appointed  day.  From  the 
Cambunian  mountains  on  the  north,  where  the  last  free  Greek  dis- 
trict touched  the  Persian  vassal  kingdom  of  Macedon,  to  Taenarum 
in  the  extreme  south,  the  Hellenic  states  had,  with  the  two  excep- 
tions before  mentioned,  answered  to  the  appeal.  It  was  no  ordi- 
nary crisis  that  could  cause  old  enemies  like  Athens  and  Aegina, 
Thessaly  and  Phocis,  Tegea  and  Mantinea,  to  forget  their  feuds 
and  remember  that  all  were  sons  of  Hellen  and  lovers  of  freedom. 
But  under  the  stress  of  the  attack  of  Persia  reconciliation  had  be- 
come possible.  Some  came  to  the  meeting  determined  to  resist  at 
any  cost ;  others  were  so  deeply  impressed  with  the  might  of  the 


BATTLE    OF    MARATHON  179 

481   B.C. 

oncoming  enemy  that  comparatively  little  confidence  was  to  be 
placed  in  their  steadfastness;  but  even  these  last  had  not  ventured 
to  neglect  the  summons. 

The  first  step  of  the  congress  was  to  mediate  between  those  of 
its  members  who  were  at  feud  with  each  other.  In  consequence 
of  this  action,  Aegina  and  Athens,  as  well  as  sundry  other  states, 
were  induced  to  suspend  their  hostilities.  Next,  a  solemn  appeal 
was  made  for  assistance  to  all  the  outlying  sections  of  the  Greek 
race  beyond  the  seas.  This  idea  deserved  greater  success  than 
it  obtained;  the  Cretans  excused  themselves  on  the  ground  of  a 
prohibition  from  the  Delphic  oracle ;  the  Corcyraeans  promised  aid, 
but  by  starting  their  squadron  late,  and  ordering  it  to  delay  on  the 
way,  caused  it  to  arrive  long  after  the  crisis  of  the  war  was  over. 
Gelo,  the  powerful  despot  of  Syracuse,  made  most  liberal  offers 
of  assistance,  promising  twenty  thousand  hoplites  and  two  hun- 
dred triremes,  but  only  on  the  preposterous  condition  that  he 
should  be  made  generalissimo  of  the  whole  confederate  army,  a 
demand  which  he  must  have  known  would  be  refused  by  Spartan 
pride.  Indeed,  it  is  most  unlikely  that  he  ever  dreamed  of  sending 
help  across  the  Ionian  Sea,  for  he  was  at  this  very  moment  threat- 
ened by  a  formidable  invasion  of  the  Carthaginians  from  Africa, 
which  was  in  all  probability  concerted  to  synchronize  with  Xerxes's 
attack  on  Greece. 

Although  they  had  now  ascertained  that  they  would  have  to 
rely  on  themselves  alone,  the  delegates  of  the  confederated  Greeks 
resolved  to  issue  a  bold  manifesto  ere  they  separated.  Accordingly 
they  published  a  solemn  warning  that  any  state  which  submitted 
to  Xerxes  without  having  been  compelled  by  force  should,  after 
the  termination  of  the  war,  be  attacked  by  all  the  confederates, 
and  that  one-tenth  of  the  booty  obtained  from  it  should  be  dedicated 
to  the  Delphic  Apollo. 

It  was  now  too  late  in  the  autumn  to  allow  the  Persian  attack 
to  be  delivered  in  481  b.c.  The  crisis  was  evidently  to  take  place 
in  the  spring  of  the  following  year,  and  four  months  of  suspense 
lay  before  the  confederates.  To  this  period  belong  the  numerous 
appeals  which  the  different  states,  in  their  feverish  anxiety  to  know 
the  unknowable,  made  to  the  Delphic  oracle.  Much  to  his  dis- 
credit, Apollo  showed  no  slight  tendency  to  "  Medize,"  or  take 
the  side  of  the  Great  King.  No  doubt  the  Delphians,  then  as 
always   in  the  possession  of  excellent  information  as  to  foreign 


180  GREECE 

481-480  B.C. 

parts,  had  fully  realized  the  strength  of  Xerxes,  and  foresaw  his 
success.  At  any  rate,  the  oracle  told  the  Spartans  that  "  not  even 
if  they  had  the  strength  of  bulls  or  of  lions  could  they  resist  the 
Persian,  and  that  either  Sparta  or  a  Spartan  king  must  perish." 
Athens  received  an  even  more  dismal  reply :  "  She  was  rotten  in 
head  and  body,  hand  and  foot — fire  and  sword  in  the  wake  of  the 
Syrian  chariot  should  destroy  the  city  of  Pallas  " ;  while  but  poor 
consolation  was  given  by  a  supplementary  rhapsody,  which  stated 
that  "  safety  should  be  found  in  the  wooden  wall,  and  divine 
Salamis  should  destroy  the  children  of  men."  Argos,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  encouraged  in  her  policy  of  selfish  isolation  by  the  advice 
to  "  keep  her  head  within  her  shell  "  like  the  tortoise,  and  let  events 
take  their  course. 

Betwixt  hopes  and  fears,  the  winter  of  481-480  B.C.  slipped  by, 
and  the  approaching  spring  made  the  commencement  of  warlike 
operations  possible. 


Chapter    XIX 

THE  INVASION  OF  XERXES,  480  B.C. 

AS  early  as  the  spring  of  481  B.C.  the  orders  of  Xerxes  had 
ZJk  set  the  contingents  of  the  distant  satrapies  of  the  East  in 
X  _m.  motion,  and  by  the  autumn  of  the  same  year  the  whole  land 
force  of  the  Persian  empire  had  gathered  at  its  appointed  meeting- 
place,  the  plain  of  Critalla  in  Cappadocia.  In  summoning  it,  the 
king  had  thought  more  of  his  own  personal  dignity  than  of  any 
other  consideration.  His  following  was  to  be  worthy  of  his  great- 
ness, and  when  he  went  forth  to  war  he  did  not  consider  it  fitting 
that  any  of  his  subjects  should  claim  an  immunity  from  its  dangers. 
Accordingly  he  had  demanded  contingents,  not  only  from  the  peo- 
ples whose  military  virtues  were  known,  but  from  every  tribe,  great 
or  small,  brave  or  unwarlike,  whom  his  dominions  contained.  It 
naturally  resulted  that  his  army  was  more  fitted  to  serve  as  an 
ethnological  museum  than  as  an  efficient  machine  for  conquest. 
His  own  Persians  were  gallant  and  loyal,  but  side  by  side  with  them 
marched  worthless  hordes  drawn  from  nations  destitute  of  military 
reputation,  half-naked  savages,  dragged  from  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
and  Asiatic  Greeks  dispatched  against  their  will  to  subdue  their 
own  brethren.  The  muster-roll  of  the  host  of  Xerxes  has  been 
preserved  for  us  in  the  pages  of  Herodotus.  Its  contents  go  far  to 
justify  the  boast  of  the  Greeks  that  they  had  faced  a  whole  world 
in  arms,  but  at  the  same  time  explain  why  the  seeming  miracle  was 
possible.  There  were,  indeed,  in  the  Great  King's  army,  besides  his 
own  ten  thousand  "  Immortals  "  of  the  body-guard  and  the  other 
native  Persians,  numerous  contingents  of  value.  The  Bactrian 
horse  and  the  archers  of  the  Sacae  could  be  trusted  to  do  good 
service;  the  Lycians  and  Carians  were  armed  after  the  Greek 
fashion,  and  had  ere  now  faced  Greeks  in  battle ;  but  equally  numer- 
ous were  the  masses  of  savages  who  had  not  even  learned  the 
use  of  metals  or  the  value  of  defensive  armor.  "  The  Aethiopians 
from  beyond  Egypt,"  for  example,  as  we  read,  "  were  clad  in 
leopard-skins,   and  carried  bows  made  of  the  central  rib  of  the 

181 


182  G  R  E  E  C  E 

481-480  B.C. 

palm  leaf.  Their  arrows  were  reed  tipped  with  sharp  fragments  of 
stone,  and  they  were  armed  in  addition  with  spears  pointed  with 
gazelles'  horns  or  knotted  clubs.  They  painted  half  their  body 
white  and  half  red  before  going  into  battle."  The  Sagartian  horse- 
men came  bearing  no  weapons  but  a  lasso  and  a  long  knife.  The 
Libyans  had  no  better  arms  than  staves  with  their  points  hardened 
in  the  fire.  The  wild  tribes  of  Caucasus  tried  to  guard  their  heads 
with  wooden  hats,  but  had  no  form  of  protection  for  their  bodies, 
and  only  short  darts  and  knives  as  offensive  weapons.  It  can 
easily  be  imagined  how  utterly  useless  were  these  half-naked  bar- 
barians when  Greek  hoplites  had  to  be  faced  in  the  narrow  frontage 
of  a  Greek  pass.  But  they  were  even  worse  than  useless,  for  they 
increased  the  line  of  march  to  an  unwieldy  length,  consumed  vast 
quantities  of  provisions,  and  in  the  moment  of  conflict  were  cer- 
tain to  enfeeble  the  steadier  troops  who  were  mixed  with  them  in 
the  line  of  battle. 

How  many  fighting  men,  good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  Xerxes 
took  with  him  it  is  impossible  to  say.  Report  swelled  their  numbers 
to  five  millions,  and  the  least  exaggerated  accounts  speak  of  eight 
hundred  thousand — a  figure  which  does  not  seem  utterly  impossible 
when  we  remember  the  vigor  with  which  the  king  had  urged  on 
the  armament,  and  the  years  he  had  spent  in  preparation.  But  if 
we  consider  the  quality  of  the  host,  its  quantity  becomes  a  matter 
of  comparatively  little  importance. 

After  meeting  at  Critalla,  the  army  moved  westward  to  Sardis, 
and  went  into  winter  quarters  in  that  city  and  the  neighboring 
Lydian  and  Ionian  towns  till  the  spring  of  480  B.C.  arrived.  It 
was  during  this  interval  that  spies  sent  by  the  Greeks  were  detected 
in  the  Persian  camp.  Xerxes  thought  that  he  had  everything  to 
gain  by  the  full  number  of  his  army  being  known  across  the 
Aegean,  and  instead  of  slaying  the  men,  had  them  conducted 
through  every  part  of  his  cantonments,  and  then  dismissed  them 
in  safety  to  tell  all  that  they  had  seen. 

Early  in  480  b.c,  the  Persian  army  was  joined  by  its  fleet, 
which  safely  rounded  the  Triopian  promontory  and  cast  anchor  at 
Samos.  The  marine  conscription  had  been  no  less  rigorous  than 
that  on  land,  and  every  maritime  people  in  Xerxes's  dominions  had 
been  compelled  to  put  forth  its  full  strength — even  nations  like  the 
Egyptians,  who  were  little  habituated  to  the  sea.  The  most  trust- 
worthy portion  of  the  fleet  was  composed  of  the  sliips  of  the  Phoe- 


INVASION    OF    XERXES  183 

480  B.C. 

nician  cities ;  the  kings  of  Tyre,  Sidon,  and  Aradus  each  appeared 
in  person  at  the  head  of  his  contingent,  and  together  these  amounted 
to  more  than  three  hundred  vessels;  the  Egyptians,  Cypriots,  Ci- 
licians,  and  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor  contributed  nine  hundred  more,  so 
that  the  whole  armada  mustered  twelve  hundred  vessels  of  war,  in 
addition  to  numerous  tenders  and  transports.  Each  trireme  car- 
ried, besides  its  native  crew,  a  detachment  of  thirty  Persian  sol- 
diers, who  were  destined  to  serve  as  marines. 

Before  fleet  and  army  finally  started  on  their  way,  the  king  had 
commanded  the  execution  of  two  works  of  great  magnitude  and 
little  utility,  which  he  imagined  would  facilitate  their  progress. 
Lest  his  ships  should  suffer  at  the  stormy  headland  of  Mount  Athos 
a  disaster  similar  to  that  which  Mardonius  had  experienced  twelve 
years  before,  he  had  the  sandy  isthmus,  which  connects  the  penin- 
sula of  Acte  with  the  mainland  of  Chalcidice,  pierced  by  a  canal. 
This  saved  the  fleet  a  few  miles  of  sea  at  the  cost  of  an  incalculable 
amount  of  labor  and  expense.  But  the  second  engineering  work 
was  even  more  useless.  In  order  that  his  army  might  be  able  to 
move  straight  on  from  Asia  into  Europe,  without  being  delayed  by 
the  necessity  of  crossing  the  Hellespont  on  shipboard,  he  determined 
to  bridge  over  that  strait.  Six  hundred  and  seventy-four  mer- 
chantmen, moored  in  two  rows  side  by  side,  and  fastened  together 
with  strong  cables,  formed  two  bridges  spanning  the  space  of  some- 
what less  than  a  mile  between  the  continents,  and  connecting  the 
European  shore  near  Sestos  with  the  Asiatic  heights  above  Abydos. 
A  continuous  flooring  of  planks  was  laid  on  the  vessels,  and  earth 
rammed  down  on  top  of  it,  while  boardings  were  erected  on  each 
side  of  the  gangway  to  hide  the  view  of  the  sea  from  the  horses  and 
baggage  animals.  Not  long  after  its  completion  the  bridges  were 
shattered  by  a  storm ;  thereupon  Xerxes  asserted  his  authority  by 
ordering  the  engineers  who  had  designed  them  to  be  beheaded, 
and,  if  we  may  believe  tradition,  by  inflicting  three  hundred  lashes 
on  the  unruly  sea,  and  causing  chains  to  be  cast  into  its  rebellious 
waters.  The  officials  to  whom  the  rebuilding  of  the  bridge  was 
entrusted  took  Vv-arning  by  the  fate  of  their  predecessors,  and,  by 
doubling  the  strength  of  their  fastenings,  produced  a  more  durable 
work,  which  endured  the  stress  of  all  weathers  for  nine  months. 
Over  this  structure  the  whole  Persian  land  force  defiled  in  safety, 
while  Xerxes,  seated  on  a  marble  throne  on  the  Asiatic  shore, 
watched  the  interminable  line  of  march  as  it  pressed  forward  into 


184  GREECE 

480  B.C. 

Europe.  At  the  sight  of  such  countless  myriads  of  men  even  the 
reckless  despot  was  touched  by  a  feeling  of  common  humanity: 
he  burst  into  tears  when  he  reflected  that  of  the  whole  host  not  one 
man  would  be  alive  a  hundred  years  hence. 

Immense  magazines  of  provisions  had  been  collected  during  the 
past  three  years  at  four  points  on  the  Thracian  coast — ^Leuce  Acte, 
Tyrodiza,  Doriscus,  and  Eion — so  that  the  expedition  was  enabled 
to  push  on  westward  without  suffering  any  privations.  At  Doris- 
cus Xerxes  held  a  review  of  all  his  forces  by  land  and  sea ;  the  fleet 
sailed  by  under  his  eyes,  while  the  army  was  numbered  by  the 
primitive  method  of  finding  how  large  an  enclosure  would  hold  ex- 
actly ten  thousand  men,  and  then  sending  the  contingents  one  after 
the  other  into  the  space  till  all  had  been  measured  by  it.  Pressing 
on  from  Doriscus,  the  king  reached  the  frontiers  of  the  vassal  state 
of  Macedonia,  where  he  was  joined  by  the  whole  force  of  the  land 
under  its  prince,  Alexander.  In  the  Pangaean  hills  his  baggage- 
train  suffered  much  molestation  from  the  lions,  which  then 
abounded  in  that  part  of  Europe,  though  they  have  since  entirely 
disappeared.  Meantime  the  fleet  passed  through  the  canal  on 
Mount  Athos,  and  rounded  the  capes  of  the  other  two  Chalcidic 
peninsulas,  finally  rejoining  the  army  at  Therma,  the  town  which 
later  generations  knew  as  the  great  harbor  of  Thessalonica.  From 
this  point  Xerxes  had  full  in  his  view  the  towering  heights  of  Olym- 
pus, the  only  barrier  which  now  intervened  between  him  and  the 
plain  of  Thessaly.  There  were  exiled  Thessalian  princes  of  the 
great  house  of  Aleuas  in  his  camp,  and  from  them  he  was  able  to 
gain  information  as  to  the  disposition  of  the  first  free  Greek  people 
with  whom  he  was  to  come  into  contact. 

The  moment  that  the  news  of  Xerxes's  passage  of  the  Helles- 
pont reached  Greece,  the  delegates  of  the  preceding  year  had  re- 
assembled at  Corinth.  The  Th.essalians,  on  whom  the  storm  was 
first  to  break,  spoke  out  in  no  hesitating  terms.  They  placed  their 
whole  force  at  the  disposition  of  the  confederates,  provided  that 
adequate  assistance  from  Southern  Greece  was  granted  them,  but 
they  insisted  that  they  should  not  be  left  alone  to  face  the  first 
shock.  If  no  army  came  to  their  aid,  they  would  not  undertake  to 
fight  alone  in  behalf  of  absent  allies,  and  would  make  what  terms 
they  could  with  the  Great  King.  The  confederates  had  no  thought 
of  allowing  the  rich  and  populous  Thessalian  plain  to  pass  into 
Persian  hands  without  a  blow  being  struck,  and  promptly  collected 


INVASION    OF    XERXES  185 

480  B.C. 

a  contingent  of  ten  thousand  hopHtes  and  a  considerable  squadron 
of  ships.  The  service  was  considered  so  important  that  Themisto- 
cles  was  placed  in  command  of  the  Athenian  troops,  though  the 
Spartan  Euaenetus  took  charge  of  the  whole  army.  They  em- 
barked at  the  isthmus,  rounded  Sunium,  and  passing  up  the  Euripus 
disembarked  at  Halus  in  Phthiotis,  where  the  fleet  remained, 
blocking  the  strait  between  Euboea  and  the  mainland.  The  full 
force  of  the  Thessalian  cities,  including  their  famous  and  formidable 
cavalry,  joined  the  confederates  in  the  valley  of  the  Peneus,  and  the 
whole  advanced  to  the  pass  of  Tempe,  the  narrow  defile  at  the  mouth 
of  that  river,  through  which  the  main  road  from  Macedonia  passes. 
The  position  was  excellent  for  a  small  army  designing  to  block  the 
road  of  a  superior  force,  but  it  had  the  disadvantage,  to  which  well- 
nigh  all  positions  are  liable,  of  being  able  to  be  turned  by  a  long 
flank  march.  The  Greeks  had  been  only  a  few  days  in  Tempe  when 
they  received  secret  notice  from  Alexander  of  ]\Iacedon,  who  passed 
for  a  well-wisher  to  Greece,  though  he  was  a  Persian  vassal,  to 
the  effect  that  Xerxes  was  about  to  use  not  only  the  main  road,  but 
also  the  upland  passes  which  lead  from  Western  JMacedonia  to 
Gonnus  and  the  other  towns  of  Northwestern  Thessaly.  If  these 
were  once  forced,  the  army  in  the  defile  of  Tempe  would  be  com- 
pelled to  retire,  and  would  probably  be  caught  and  trodden  underfoot 
in  the  plain  of  Thessaly  by  the  innumerable  hosts  of  the  Great  King. 
Strategically  this  was  true,  but  the  danger  was  not  yet  imminent, 
and  the  political  reasons  for  endeavoring  to  keep  up  a  show  of 
resistance  on  the  Thessalian  border  were  manifest.  If  the  example 
was  once  set  of  deserting  allies  because  they  did  not  possess  a  thor- 
oughly defensible  frontier,  there  was  no  saying  where  the  retreat 
would  end,  and  all  confidence  in  the  action  of  the  confederacy  must 
cease.  Nevertheless  the  nerve  of  Euaenetus  and  his  colleagues 
seems  to  have  failed  them;  without  waiting  for  the  Persians  to 
develop  an  attack,  they  hastily  broke  up  their  camp,  deserted  their 
Thessalian  comrades,  and  hurrying  down  to  Halus  took  ship  back 
to  the  Isthmus. 

It  naturally  followed  that  the  Thessalians,  with  all  their  de- 
pendent tribes — the  Magnesians,  Malians,  Aenianes,  and  Dolopes — 
lost  not  a  moment  in  sending  earth  and  water  to  Xerxes.  It  was 
not  yet  too  late  to  propitate  him  by  prompt  submission  before  they 
had  been  attacked.  Thus  the  largest  Greek  land  in  the  whole  penin- 
sula was  lost  to  the  confederates  before  a  blow  had  been  struck. 


186  GREECE 

480  B.C. 

There  was  much  wranghng-  and  recrimination  at  Corinth  when 
the  fruitless  expedition  returned.  The  evil  was  now  at  the  very 
doors  of  the  states  of  Central  Greece,  and,  to  make  the  matter  worse, 
it  was  known  that  Thebes  and  her  dependents  in  the  Boeotian 
League  were  ready  to  follow  the  example  of  the  Thessalians,  not 
merely  from  fear, — as  had  been  the  case  with  the  latter  people, — • 
but  from  an  active  dislike  to  their  neighbor  Athens,  and  a  wish 
to  crush  the  newly  risen  power.  The  only  doubt  which  could 
influence  the  confederate  synod  was  whether  the  next  stand  should 
by  made  at  Thermopylae  or  at  the  Corinthian  Isthmus.  If  the 
latter  position  was  chosen,  Athens,  Phocis,  and  Euboea  must  be 
sacrificed,  as  Thessaly  had  already  been.  It  was,  therefore,  not 
difficult  to  foresee  that  the  more  advanced  post  would  be  occupied, 
in  spite  of  the  reluctance  of  some  of  the  Peloponnesians  to  fight  at 
such  a  distance  from  their  homes.  Accordingly  it  was  determined 
to  seize  and  hold  Thermopylae  with  an  army,  and  the  straits  of 
Euboea  with  a  fleet,  before  the  Persians  should  have  crossed  Thes- 
saly. Luckily  Xerxes  tarried  long  at  Therma  before  resuming  his 
march,  and  the  scheme  turned  out  to  be  feasible.  A  fleet  of  271 
ships,  of  which  as  many  as  127  were  Athenian,  met  in  the  Saronic 
Gulf  and  passed  up  the  Eurlpus.  It  was  commanded  by  the  Spartan 
Eurybiades,  for  the  Corinthians  and  Aeginetans  refused  to  serve 
under  an  Athenian  admiral,  although  Athens  contributed  by  far  the 
largest  contingent  to  the  fleet,  while  the  Athenians  were  equally 
averse  to  yielding  precedence  to  anyone  save  a  Spartan.  Eury- 
biades was  a  man  of  narrow  mind  and  hopeless  obstinacy,  and  it  re- 
quired every  blandishment  of  his  able  subordinate  Themistocles  to 
keep  him  from  ruining  the  cause  of  Greece  by  his  continual  blunders 
and  vagaries.  The  land  force  was  placed  under  the  command  of 
the  Spartan  king  Leonidas,  who  had  succeeded  his  brother  Cleom- 
enes  after  the  latter's  untimely  death.  The  space  to  be  traversed 
by  the  land  force  in  its  march  to  Thermopylae  was  greater  than  that 
which  the  fleet  had  to  cover,  and  the  time  required  to  collect  the 
contingents  far  longer;  there  was,  therefore,  no  slight  danger 
that  the  army  might  arrive  at  Thermopylae  only  to  find  that  it  was 
already  in  the  hands  of  the  Persians.  The  situation  was  aggravated 
by  the  fact  that  the  Spartans  were  on  the  eve  of  celebrating  their 
great  festival  of  the  Carneia,  and  were  troubled  by  the  same  ridic- 
ulous scruples  as  to  marching  in  the  holy  season  which  had  caused 
them  to  arrive  too  late  at  Marathon  ten  years  before.    Leonidas  was 


INVASION    OF    XERXES  187 

430  B.C. 

unable  to  lead  out  the  full  force  of  Laconia,  and  had  to  depend  for 
the  moment  on  his  personal  following.  Recognizing  that  he  had 
a  service  of  great  danger  before  him,  and,  moreover,  having  the 
prophecy  that  "  either  Sparta  or  a  Spartan  king  must  perish  "  ring- 
ing in  his  ears,  he  chose  as  his  body-guard  not  the  three  hundred 
youths  who  usually  accompanied  him  to  the  field,  but  the  same 
number  of  men  who  had  sons  living,  and  whose  families  would  not 
be  extinguished  in  the  event  of  a  disaster.  Without  delay  he  set 
out  at  the  head  of  this  small  force,  and  of  the  usual  contingent  of 
Helots,  who  in  all  Spartan  expeditions  accompanied  their  masters 
in  the  proportion  of  seven  or  eight  to  each  of  the  citizens.  From 
the  Arcadian  towns  which  lay  directly  on  his  route  he  hastily  col- 
lected something  more  than  two  thousand  hoplites,  while  at  the 
isthmus  seven  hundred  Corinthians,  Phliasians,  and  Mycenaeans 
joined  him.  With  this  force  at  his  back  he  suddenly  presented  him- 
self before  the  gates  of  Thebes,  whose  citizens  had  not  yet  accom- 
plished their  meditated  defection  to  the  Persians.  As  they  were 
unprepared  for  resistance,  Leonidas  was  able  to  overawe  the  ruling 
oligarchy,  and  to  draw  from  its  ranks  a  contingent  of  four  hundred 
men,  who,  though  their  hearts  were  not  in  the  cause,  still  served  as 
hostages  for  the  fidelity  of  their  countrymen.  From  Thespiae,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  town  which  had  always  taken  the  lead  in  oppos- 
ing the  centralizing  policy  of  Thebes,  came  of  their  own  accord  a 
body  of  seven  hundred  hoplites,  who  proved  in  the  subsequent 
operations  that  some  at  least  of  the  Boeotians  were  true  to  the  cause 
of  Hellas.  Giving  out  that  his  force  was  but  the  vanguard  of  the 
full  levy  of  the  Peloponnese,  Leonidas  pressed  forward  to  Thermop- 
ylae, and  arrived  there  long  before  the  Persians  had  crossed 
Thessaly.  The  troops  of  Phocis  and  of  the  Locrians  of  Opus  joined 
him  in  the  pass,  and  raised  his  total  numbers  to  nearly  ten  thousand 
men,  a  body  quite  sufficient  to  occupy  the  narrow  defile.  The  first 
step  for  the  defense  of  Central  Greece  had  been  successfully  carried 
out,  but  it  was  rendered  of  no  avail  by  the  delay  of  the  Peloponnesian 
confederates  in  bringing  up  their  main  body.  It  is  impossible  to 
ascribe  this  merely  to  dilatoriness,  negligence,  or  religious  scruples ; 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  selfishness  played  a  larger  part  in  causing 
their  delay  than  did  any  other  motive. 

The  celebrated  pass  in  which  Leonidas  took  up  his  position 
consists  of  a  narrow  slip  of  level  ground  between  the  sea  and  the 
cliffs  of  Mount  Callidromus,  one  of  the  numerous  offshoots  of  the 


188  GREECE 

480  B.C. 

range  of  Oeta.  It  looks  westward  into  the  little  plain  of  Malis, 
while  behind  it  to  the  east  lies  the  coast-land  of  Locris  and  Phocis. 
As  the  space  between  the  mountains  and  the  water  contracts,  the 
defile  becomes  narrower,  till  at  its  culminating  point  there  is  barely 
room  for  a  carriage-way.  The  whole  passage,  from  the  river 
Asopus  on  the  Malian  side  to  the  Locrian  village  of  Alpeni,  is  about 
two  miles  in  length.  In  the  middle  of  the  defile  lay  the  hot  springs 
which  gave  the  place  its  name.  In  front  of  them  the  level  ground 
expands  for  a  few  furlongs,  so  as  to  leave  room  for  the  temple  of 
Demeter,  at  which  the  Amphictyonic  deputies  used  to  meet.^  In 
rear  of  this  spot  there  lay  an  ancient  fortification,  a  wall  which  the 
Phocians  had  once  raised  to  restrain  the  inroads  of  their  Thessalian 
neighbors ;  it  was  now  half-ruined,  but  still  served  to  mark  the  line 
on  which  resistance  to  an  invader  coming  from  the  northwest  would 
be  easiest.  Here,  then,  Leonidas  and  his  men  fixed  their  camp ;  to 
their  right  lay  the  strait,  some  five  miles  broad,  and  beyond  it  the 
mountains  of  Euboea.  To  their  left  were  inaccessible  rocks  rising 
in  many  places  to  sheer  cliffs  eight  hundred  feet  high.  So  rugged 
was  the  defile  that  in  its  whole  length  not  one  path  led  down  from 
the  mountain  to  the  shore.  But  from  Trachis,  beyond  the  Malian 
end  of  the  pass,  a  winding  track,  curving  far  inland  over  a  ridge 
called  Anopaea,  reached  Alpeni  in  the  rear  of  the  Greek  position. 
This  was  the  only  route  by  which  the  pass  could  be  turned,  with- 
out making  an  enormous  detour  of  several  days'  march  into  the 
upper  valleys  of  Mount  Oeta.  To  guard  it,  Leonidas  placed  the 
whole  of  his  Phocian  allies  on  the  hills,  while  his  Peloponnesian 
forces  held  the  pass. 

Meanwhile  Eurybiades,  with  the  confederate  fleet,  took  post 
at  the  promontory  of  Artemisium,  a  point  on  the  Euboean  Strait 
considerably  to  the  north  of  Thermopylae,  so  that  it  was  impossible 
for  the  Persian  fleet  to  pass  by  the  position  of  Leonidas  in  order  to 
land  troops  in  his  rear.  Of  this,  as  it  happened,  there  was  little 
danger.  With  the  instinct  of  a  barbarian  utterly  unused  to  the 
sea,  Xerxes  never  seems  to  have  reflected  that  his  fleet  could  be  used 
to  explore  the  way  for  his  army,  or  to  take  the  enemy  in  the  rear. 
It  was  rather  the  army  which  pushed  ahead  to  explore  the  way  for 
the  fleet.  Xot  till  twelve  days  after  the  Persian  rear-guard  had 
defiled  through  the  gates  of  Therma  did  the  armada  set  sail  on  its 

1  At  the  western  end  of  the  pass,  near  Anthela,  was  another  hot  spring  and 
contraction  of  the  road,  which  has  been  called  "  the  False  Thermopylae." 


INVASION    OF    XERXES  189 

480  B.C. 

southern  voyage.  Coasting  down  the  rocky  coast  of  Magnesia,  the 
ships  reached  Cape  Sepias,  where  the  range  of  PeHon  abruptly  ends 
in  a  sea-beaten  promontpry.  Here  the  fleet  halted,  a  single  row  of 
vessels  being  drawn  up  on  the  narrow  beach,  while  the  rest — seven 
deep — rode  at  anchor  off  the  harborless  coast.  At  mid-night  a  sud- 
den storm  from  the  northeast  swept  down  on  the  dangerously 
crowded  array,  and  threw  all  into  disorder.  Some  captains  made 
for  the  open  sea,  while  others  endeavored  to  beach  their  vessels  on 
the  already  crowded  strip  of  shingle.  The  hurricane  lasted  three 
days,  and  at  its  end  no  small  part  of  the  king's  fleet  was  found  to 
have  been  destroyed  or  disabled.  The  rocky  coast  for  miles  to  the 
north  was  strewn  with  wrecks,  and  many  scores  of  vessels  were 
struck  from  the  muster-roll  of  the  Persian  armament.  The  Greeks, 
meanwhile,  who  had  remained  safely  moored  in  the  harbor  of  His- 
tiaea,  exclaimed  that  Boreas — kinsman,  according  to  a  strange 
myth,  of  the  Athenian  kings  of  old — had  come  to  the  help  of  his 
relations,  and  sailed  out  to  destroy  the  king's  fleet,  which  was  said 
to  have  been  utterly  shattered  by  the  storm.  They  found,  however, 
that  the  Persians  were  still  nearly  four  times  as  numerous  as  them- 
selves, and  at  once  the  Peloponnesian  admirals  proposed  to  fall  back 
on  the  Isthmus,  and  gather  reinforcements  there.  Eurybiades  was 
only  induced  to  remain  by  a  large  bribe  which  his  colleague,  The- 
mistocles,  administered  to  him.  That  astute  statesman  had  just 
received  thirty  talents  from  the  cities  of  Euboea,  who,  being  cov- 
ered while  the  fleet  remained  at  Artemisium,  were  most  reluctant 
to  see  it  depart.  Making  over  about  a  third  of  the  sum  to  his  col- 
leagues, Themistocles  pocketed  the  rest.  The  talents  which  he 
spared  for  the  Peloponnesians  did  their  work,  and  the  fleet  kept 
its  position.  Meanwhile  the  Persian  admirals  had  got  their  armada 
again  in  hand ;  they  sent  two  hundred  ships  down  the  eastern  coast 
of  Euboea  to  round  the  southern  point  of  the  island  and  block  the 
exit  of  the  Euripus,  and  prepared  with  the  remainder  to  crush  the 
Greeks  at  Artemisium.  A  day's  fighting  in  the  strait  brought  no 
decisive  result,  but  on  the  next  night  another  storm  arose,  not  less 
dreadful  than  the  one  of  the  preceding  week.  Not  only  did  it  dam- 
age the  king's  fleet,  which  now  lay  in  the  Thessalian  harbor  of  Aphe- 
tae,  but  it  caught  the  detached  squadron  as  it  sailed  down  the  iron- 
bound  eastern  coast  of  Euboea,  and  dashed  it  to  pieces  on  the  rocks 
of  Geraestus ;  it  seemed  as  if  the  gods  were  working  to  bring  down 
the  Persian  fleet  to  an  equality  with  the  Greeks.     Two  days  more 


190  GREECE 

480  B.C. 

of  indecisive  fighting  in  the  strait  followed,  in  which  the  weaker 
party  held  its  own.  The  enemy  was  still  too  numerous  to  be 
crushed,  but  though  he  spread  his  vessels  out  in  an  enormous  cres- 
cent, and  endeavored  to  envelop  the  confederates,  he  suffered  far 
more  damage  than  he  inflicted.  The  Athenian  ships  were  always 
to  the  front,  and  suffered  a  proportionately  heavier  loss  than  their 
allies :  but  their  numbers  were  more  than  sustained  by  the  arrival 
of  a  reserve  squadron  of  fifty-three  triremes,  which  came  up  the 
Eurlpus  in  time  for  the  third  day's  fighting.  Nothing  decisive  had 
yet  occurred  at  Artemisium,  when,  on  the  fourth  day,  a  swift  row- 
ing-boat was  seen  coming  up  from  the  south.  In  it  was  Abrony- 
chus,  an  Athenian  who  had  been  left  off  the  Malian  coast  to  bear 
intelligence  from  the  army  to  the  fleet.  The  news  which  he  brought 
from  Thermopylae  was  so  disastrous  that  the  admirals  had  not 
a  moment  to  lose  before  they  retreated. 

When  the  multitudes  of  Xerxes  came  pouring  over  the  passes 
of  Othrys  into  the  Malian  plain,  they  halted  on  finding  that  the 
defile  of  Thermopylae  was  occupied.  The  king  had  now  before  him 
two  alternatives :  he  might  force  the  pass,  or  he  might  move  inland, 
and  march  round  by  the  upland  roads  which  pass  through  Doris,  so 
as  to  turn  Thermopylae  just  as  he  had  turned  Tempe.  To  take  the 
inland  road  meant  to  lose  many  days,  and  to  break  off  communica- 
tion with  the  fleet.  He  therefore  determined  to  assault  the  Phocian 
wall,  and  trample  down  its  presumptuous  defenders. 

The  story  of  the  fight  in  the  pass  of  Thermopylae  is  sur- 
rounded by  a  host  of  legends,  probable,  possible,  and  impossible, 
whose  authenticity  it  is  useless  to  discuss.  Most  of  them  illustrate 
the  utter  insensibility  of  the  Spartans  in  the  face  of  imminent  death, 
and  the  bewilderment  which  that  insensibility  caused  in  the  mind 
of  a  king  accustomed  to  regard  courage  as  the  offspring  of  confi- 
dence in  victory  alone.  When  the  Persian  scouts,  we  are  told,  ap- 
peared for  the  first  time  in  front  of  the  pass,  they  did  not  find  the 
Spartans  cowering  behind  their  wall,  but  carelessly  wandering 
without  it,  combing  their  long  hair,  or  indulging  in  gymnastic  exer- 
cises. The  king  laughed  at  them  as  madmen  for  not  taking  to 
flight,  and  was  only  amused  when  Demaratus,  the  exiled  Spartan 
king  who  had  attached  himself  to  the  Persian  court,  explained  that 
their  heedlessness  was  the  sign  of  desperate  resolution,  and  not  of 
folly.  After  waiting  a  while  to  allow  the  madmen  time  to  come  to 
their  senses,  Xerxes  grew  irritated,  and  sent  forward  a  body  of 


INVASION    OF    XERXES  191 

480  B.C. 

troops  from  Media  and  Elam,  bidding  them  "  take  these  presump- 
tuous men  ahve,  and  bring  them  before  the  face  of  the  king." 

Leonidas  must  have  already  reaHzed,  as  the  days  went  by, 
without  the  promised  succors  from  Peloponnesus  reaching  him^ 
that  he  was  sent  on  a  hopeless  task,  for  although  he  might  maintain 
the  defile,  and  even  the  flanking  road  over  Anopaea,  he  could  do 
nothing  to  keep  the  king  from  the  more  western  passes.  But,  like 
a  true  Spartan,  he  kept  his  orders  before  him,  and  took  no  thought 
of  the  consequences.  He  had  by  this  time  repaired  the  Phocian 
wall  to  serve  him  as  a  final  defense,  but  was  still  holding  ground  in 
front  of  it,  at  one  of  the  narrowest  points  of  the  pass.  He  had 
divided  his  men  into  several  bodies,  of  which  each  was  to  take  the 
place  of  danger  in  turn,  for  a  few  score  of  hoplites  only  could  find 
space  between  the  water  and  the  cliff,  and  the  rest  had  perforce  to 
remain  in  reserve. 

The  Medes  came  on  with  great  confidence,  pushing  forward 
into  the  defile  till  they  formed  a  long,  deep  column,  with  a  front 
no  broader  than  that  of  the  Greeks.  Then  the  shock  came,  and  ere 
long  the  Asiatics  were  hurled  back  in  disorder.  In  fighting  hand- 
to-hand  on  equal  terms  it  was  seen  now,  as  it  had  been  at  Marathon 
ten  years  before,  that  the  lightly  armed  Oriental,  with  his  dart  and 
scimitar  and  wicker  shield,  could  do  nothing  against  the  hoplite 
cased  in  brass  from  head  to  foot,  and  armed  with  the  long,  thrust- 
ing spear.  The  Medes  were  fighting  under  the  eye  of  their  king, 
and  W' ould  not  give  up  the  contest ;  they  came  on  again  and  again, 
to  be  beaten  back  with  fearful  slaughter.  Then  Xerxes,  thinking 
that  it  was  for  w'ant  of  courage  that  they  failed,  called  them  in,  and 
sent  forw^ard  instead  his  ow'n  body-guard,  the  ten  thousand  chosen 
Persians,  called  "  The  Immortals."  But  though  they  fought  gal- 
lantly enough, the  second  column  w-as  dashed  back  with  even  greater 
loss  than  the  first.  Night  then  fell,  but  next  morning  the  attack 
w^as  renewed,  for  the  king  was  beside  himself  with  rage,  and  had 
determined  to  wear  out  the  Greeks  by  mere  force  of  numbers,  if 
no  other  means  would  avail.  But  Leonidas,  relieving  each  of  his 
battalions  as  it  grew  tired  by  another  from  the  reserve,  kept  his 
ground  with  little  loss,  while  the  road  before  him  was  almost  choked 
with  dead  Asiatics,  and  the  Persian  officers  were  seen  endeavoring 
to  lash  their  dispirited  men  back  to  the  charge  with  whips,  when 
no  lighter  persuasion  would  induce  them  to  tempt  the  dangers  of 
the  reeking  pass.     By  the  second  evening  it  was  evident  that  no 


192  GREECE 

480  B.C. 

effort  from  in  front  could  possibly  break  through;  the  whole  in- 
vasion was  at  a  standstill,  and  although  the  actual  loss  signified 
little  among  the  myriads  of  Xerxes's  army,  the  moral  effect  of  the 
•check  was  growing  fatal.  If  ten  thousand  Greeks  could  hold  the 
king  at  bay,  what  was  likely  to  happen  when  the  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  men  whom  a  national  levy  might  at  any  moment  produce 
came  up  to  help  their  comrades?  It  was  fortunate  for  Xerxes  that 
the  Peloponnesian  towns  were  too  far  off  to  allow  the  news  of  the 
first  days  of  battle  to  work  any  immediate  effect.  Despondency 
still  reigned  at  Sparta,  while  eager  self-confidence  was  felt  at  Ther- 
mopylae. 

It  was  on  the  night  following  the  second  conflict  that  a  Malian 
named  Ephialtes  came  before  the  downcast  king,  and  offered,  for 
a  large  sum  of  gold,  to  guide  the  Persians  over  the  heights  of 
Anopaea  by  the  winding  path  which  came  out  at  the  rear  of  the 
pass.  Strangely  enough,  no  previous  search  seems  to  have  been 
made  for  such  a  road,  though  its  existence  must  have  been  known 
to  every  inhabitant  of  Trachis,  where  Xerxes  had  now  been  tarry- 
ing for  six  days.  The  traitor's  proposals  were  readily  received,  and 
at  midnight  the  satrap  Hydarnes  started,  with  the  king's  "  Immor- 
tals," to  attempt  the  passage.  It  was  in  the  stillness  of  the  last  hour 
of  the  night,  just  before  the  dawn,  that  Ephialtes  brought  the  Per- 
sians to  the  point  on  the  ridge  where  lay  the  Phocian  force  which 
Leonidas  had  set  to  guard  his  flank.  The  Phocians  kept  a  careless 
watch ;  and  when  the  rustling  of  thousands  of  feet  among  the  dead 
leaves  of  the  oak  forest  smote  upon  tlieir  ears  as  they  woke,  they 
were  seized  with  panic.  Instead  of  holding  the  path,  they  ran  back 
and  formed  up  to  defend  themselves  on  the  summit  of  Callidromus. 
But  Hydarnes,  paying  no  further  attention  to  them,  passed  rapidly 
on,  and  next  morning  the  Greeks  in  the  pass  saw,  to  their  utter  dis- 
may, the  head  of  the  Persian  column  descending  from  the  hills  in 
their  rear. 

There  was  small  time  for  debate,  and  Leonidas's  resolve  was 
soon  taken.  As  a  Spartan  king  at  the  head  of  the  vanguard  of  the 
hosts  of  Greece,  he  felt  that  he  must  not  desert  the  post  committed 
to  his  charge.  His  orders  bade  him  hold  Thermopylae,  and  spoke 
of  nothing  more;  Thermopylae,  then,  he  would  hold.  He  divided 
his  little  army  into  two  halves;  his  Arcadian  and  other  Pelopon- 
nesian auxiliaries,  some  four  thousand  strong,  were  hastily  sent 
off  to  the  rear.     They  were  probably  ordered  to  make  a  desperate 


INVASION    OF    XERXES  193 

480  B.C. 

effort  to  arrest  the  march  of  Hydarnes,  by  seizing  the  lower  outlet 
of  the  path  by  which  he  was  descending  from  Anopaea.  But  either 
they  were  too  late,  or  their  hearts  failed  them ;  we  hear  of  no  fight- 
ing, but  only  that  they  retreated  eastward,  leaving  the  pass  unde- 
fended in  the  rear.  Meanwhile,  Leonidas  and  the  rest  of  the  army 
were  keeping  their  old  position  by  the  Phocian  wall.  There  re- 
mained behind  the  three  hundred  Spartans  with  their  Helots,  and 
seven  hundred  Thespians,  as  also  four  hundred  Thebans — a  contin- 
gent of  doubtful  loyalty  which  Leonidas  would  not  suffer  to  depart. 

The  third  day's  fighting  at  Thermopylae  was  quite  unlike  that 
which  had  gone  before.  When  he  learned  that  his  allies  had  made 
off,  and  that  his  rear  was  uncovered,  the  king  resolved  to  throw 
himself  on  the  enemy  in  front,  and  do  what  damage  he  could  before 
Hydarnes  came  up  to  surround  him.  Accordingly,  when  the  Per- 
sians came  flooding  up,  as  on  the  previous  days,  he  ran  out  into 
the  wider  parts  of  the  pass,  and  cut  his  way  deep  into  the  midst  of 
them.  Then  the  Greeks  turned  and  burst  back  again  as  far  as  the 
Phocian  wall,  losing  heavily  as  their  ranks  grew  looser  in  the  onset, 
but  thrusting  the  barbarians  by  hundreds  into  the  sea,  and  rolling 
column  against  column  till  more  perished  by  being  trampled  down 
in  the  press  than  fell  by  the  edge  of  the  sword.  Ere  long  Leonidas 
was  slain,  but  the  fight  went  on  only  the  more  fiercely  over  his  body, 
and  two  brothers  and  two  uncles  of  Xerxes  went  down  in  the  melee. 
Presently  Hydarnes  and  the  "  Immortals  "  came  up  from  Alpeni. 
By  this  time  the  surviving  Greeks  were  well-nigh  wearied  out;  their 
spears  were  broken,  their  swords  blunted,  their  armor  hacked  from 
their  limbs.  But  retiring  on  to  a  hillock  beside  the  roadway,  they 
made  one  final  stand,  till  they  fell  under  the  arrows  and  javelins  of 
a  foe  who  dared  not  close.  Only  the  Thebans  escaped.  Early  in 
the  conflict  they  had  fallen  back  and  surrendered  to  the  nearest 
enemy;  they  were  led  to  the  Persian  camp,  and  branded  with  the 
king's  mark  as  his  slaves;  but  when  Xerxes  learned  that  they  were 
only  in  arms  by  compulsion,  and  that  their  city  was  about  to  "  Med- 
ize  "  on  his  approach,  he  at  once  set  them  free. 

Thus  ended  the  fight  in  the  pass  of  Thermopylae.  It  had 
caused  the  death  of  some  four  thousand  Greeks  and  of  more  than 
twenty  thousand  Persians.  But  its  effects  were  not  to  be  measured 
by  the  mere  numbers  of  the  slain.  Its  real  importance  lay  in  the 
impression  which  it  left  on  the  mind  of  the  Great  King  and  his 
army.    Xerxes  had  at  last  begun  to  have  doubts  of  his  own  omnipo- 


194*  GREECE 

480  B.C. 

tence,  and  his  self-confidence  had  been  the  only  spring  of  strength 
in  his  character.  Deprived  of  it,  he  would  become  the  weakest  of 
despots.  His  soldiery  had  imbibed  an  exaggerated  dread  of  their 
enemies.  There  was  but  one  Leonidas  in  Hellas,  and  Sparta  was 
but  a  single  state  among  a  multitude;  but  to  the  Persian  spearman 
every  Greek  was  in  future  a  reckless  hero,  careless  of  life,  and  only 
bent  on  slaughter — an  adversary  who  in  open  fight  was  individ- 
ually superior  to  himself,  and  could  only  be  overpowered  by  num- 
bers. There  were  many  brave  men  in  Xerxes's  host,  who  in  later 
engagements  went  into  battle  readily  enough ;  but  they  never  after 
fought  with  the  confidence  in  their  own  superiority  which  had  been 
the  strength  of  the  Persian  down  to  Thermopylae.  This  was  for- 
tunate for  Greece;  for  one  Leonidas  there  were  in  the  Greek  ranks 
scores  of  weak,  venal,  selfish  leaders,  whose  inefficiency  was  hidden 
from  the  enemy  by  the  glory  which  surrounded  the  name  of  the 
hero  of  Thermopylae. 

But  for  the  moment  the  Greeks  could  not  judge  of  the  moral 
effect  of  the  battle  on  the  enemy,  and,  looked  at  from  the  military 
aspect,  the  war  had  begun  with  a  disaster.  A  Spartan  king,  the  soul 
of  the  war  party,  had  fallen ;  the  vanguard  of  the  confederate 
host  had  been  cut  to  pieces;  the  strongest  position  in  Greece  had 
been  forced  by  the  enemy,  who  was  now  ready  to  pour  down  into 
the  plain  of  the  Cephissus,  and  to  be  joined  by  all  the  Medizing 
cities  of  Boeotia.  The  fleet,  too,  was  compelled  to  fall  back  at  once 
from  the  Euboean  Strait,  and  where  its  retreat  might  end  it  was 
impossible  to  foresee.  In  short,  no  one  in  Greece  could  tell  at  the 
time  that  the  moral  gain  of  Thermopylae  had  been  so  tremendous 
as  quite  to  outweigh  the  miltary  and  political  loss. 


Chapter   XX 

SALAMIS  AND  PLATAEA,  480-479  B.C. 

THE  inexcusable  slackness  and  selfishness  of  the  Pelopon- 
nesians,  which  had  ruined  Leonidas  by  depriving  him  of 
his  expected  reinforcements,  reacted  at  once  on  the  fleet 
at  Artemisium.  In  order  to  avoid  being  cut  off,  Eurybiades  had 
to  weigh  anchor  on  the  night  after  the  ill  news  arrived.  He  retired 
down  the  Euripus,  leaving  Themistocles  and  a  detachment  of  the 
Athenian  squadron  to  bring  up  the  rear,  and  after  rounding  Su- 
nium,  halted  opposite  Athens  in  the  bay  of  Salamis.  The  Athenian 
admiral  is  said  to  have  employed  himself  during  the  retreat  in 
painting  up,  on  the  rocks  near  the  watering-places  of  the  Euboean 
coast,  appeals  to  the  lonians  in  the  Persian  fleet  not  to  destroy  the 
land  of  their  ancestors.  If  this  tale  be  true,  he  was  probably  aiming 
at  making  Xerxes  suspicious  of  his  Greek  subjects,  rather  than 
at  inducing  them  to  come  over;  for  he  must  have  known  well 
enough  that  the  lonians  were  not  the  men  to  desert  a  winning  for 
a  losing  cause. 

In  consequence  of  the  retreat  of  the  Greek  squadron,  the  Eu- 
boeans  found  that  their  bribes  to  Themistocles  had  availed  them 
but  for  a  few  days.  Their  leading  men  took  refuge  on  the  Euboean 
ships  in  the  confederate  fleet,  and  followed  its  fortunes,  but  the 
towns  themselves  made  their  peace  with  Xerxes. 

On  the  mainland  the  loss  to  the  cause  of  independence  was 
even  greater.  When  Thermopylae  was  clear,  Xerxes  began  to 
push  his  army  forward,  using  not  only  the  pass  he  had  forced,  but 
the  more  circuitous  inland  road  through  Doris  and  the  Upper  Ce- 
phissus  valley,  which  he  had  previously  left  unessayed.  The  Pho- 
cians,  who  refused  to  submit  to  him,  were  compelled  to  take  to  the 
hills,  and  to  see  all  their  townships  harried  by  the  Persians,  to  whom 
their  hereditary  enemies,  the  Thessalians,  acted  as  willing  guides. 
The  Locrians  of  Opus,  and  the  oligarchies  who  governed  the  ma- 
jority of  the  Boeotian  towns,  took  the  opposite  course,  and  promptly 
made  their  submission  to  the  king,  who  received  them  graciously 

195 


196  GREECE 

480  B.C. 

enough,  and  contented  himself  with  incorporating  their  contingents 
in  his  army.  Plataea,  Thespiae,  and  HaHartus  alone  refused  to  join 
in  the  general  surrender,  and  had  to  face  the  consequences  of  their 
patriotism.  The  last-named  town  suffered  complete  destruction, 
but  from  the  others,  which  lay  farther  from  the  enemy,  the  inhabi- 
tants had  time  to  escape.  The  Thespians,  though  they  had  suffered 
so  severely  at  Thermopylae,  were  in  nowise  shaken  in  their  devo- 
tion to  the  national  cause,  but  took  refuge  at  Corinth.  The  Pla- 
taeans  retired  to  their  old  friends  at  Athens,  whose  fortunes  now,  as 
ten  years  before,  they  had  determined  to  follow. 

Now  that  the  Great  King  was  already  in  Boeotia,  and  his  van- 
guard might  at  any  moment  reach  the  foot  of  the  passes  of  Cith- 
aeron.  the  Athenians  had  to  face  the  whole  danger  of  their  position. 
Of  defending  Attica  by  land  there  could  be  no  question ;  if  Ther- 
mopylae could  not  be  held,  it  would  be  madness  to  attempt  to  block 
the  four  comparatively  easy  roads  which  converge  on  Athens  from 
the  north.  Three  alternatives  only  were  possible :  to  submit  to 
Xerxes ;  to  man  the  walls  and  stand  a  siege :  or  to  abandon  the  city 
and  retire  on  the  Peloponnese,  as  the  Thespians  had  already  done. 
Each  opinion  had  its  advocates — even  the  first  and  most  dishonor- 
able. But  Themistocles,  in  the  moment  of  crisis,  carried  everything 
before  him  by  his  ready  eloquence.  He  pointed  out  the  hopelessness 
of  surrender  for  the  city,  which  was  beyond  all  others  the  peculiar 
object  of  the  hatred  of  the  Great  King,  and  so  incensed  the  people 
against  Cyrsilus,  an  orator  who  pleaded  in  favor  of  that  mean  and 
witless  step,  that  we  hear  that  the  traitor  was  stoned  on  the  spot. 
He  had  ingenious  arguments  to  urge  against  those  who  bade  Ath- 
ens stand  at  bay  behind  her  ramparts,  on  the  spot  hallowed  by  the 
traditions  of  centuries.  He  pointed  to  the  fleet,  his  own  creation, 
as  the  true  hope  and  safety  of  the  people ;  in  it  was  to  be  found  the 
"  wooden  wall  "  of  which  the  Delphic  oracle  had  spoken  as  the  sole 
refuge  in  the  day  of  disaster.  To  abandon  without  a  struggle  the 
temples  of  their  national  deities  and  the  tombs  of  their  ancestors 
required  a  pitch  of  patriotic  exaltation  which  it  was  hard  for  the 
Athenians  to  attain,  when  ultimate  success  was  so  problematic. 
Nevertheless  Themistocles  roused  his  countrymen  to  stake  every- 
thing on  the  fleet,  to  deliberately  evacuate  Attica  and  Athens,  place 
the  aged,  the  women,  and  children  in  safety  and  then  man  every 
available  vessel  and  stand  for  the  mastery  in  the  waters  of  the 
Attic  Strait.     There  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  plan  was  the  only 


SALAMIS    ANDPLATAEA  197 

480   B.C. 

feasible  one.  The  experience  of  Thermopylae  had  shown  that  the 
land  army  of  Xerxes  would  probably  fail  at  the  Isthmus,  where  it 
would  be  met,  not  by  a  scant  ten  thousand  men,  but  by  the  national 
levy  of  the  Peloponnese.  Now,  if  the  position  at  the  Isthmus  could 
be  turned  by  the  Persians  from  the  side  of  the  sea,  and  troops 
landed  in  its  rear,  the  previous  disaster  would  only  be  repeated  on 
a  larger  scale.  But  if  the  Great  King's  fleet  could  be  driven  back, 
and  kept  from  assisting  his  army,  the  whole  expedition  would  be 
brought  to  a  check ;  for  the  Corinthian  Isthmus  offered  no  facilities 
for  a  flank  movement  by  land  such  as  had  settled  the  day  at  Ther- 
mopylae. The  battles  of  Artemisium  had  made  it  clear  that  the 
Persian  fleet  could  be  harassed  and  insulted  by  a  squadron  of  far 
inferior  numbers,  and  at  those  engagements  the  Greeks  had  brought 
up  little  more  than  half  of  their  available  strength.  Themistocles, 
therefore,  was  convinced  that  in  a  vigorous  assault  on  the  sea-power 
of  the  enemy  lay  the  only  hope  of  salvation;  and  it  was  fortunate 
for  Athens,  for  Greece,  and  for  the  whole  world  that  his  fiery  elo- 
quence won  over  his  countrymen  to  accept  his  views. 

It  was  not  every  Athenian  who  could  be  convinced  by  the  ora- 
tor. A  small  but  obstinate  party  refused  to  find  the  "  wooden 
wall,"  which  was  to  save  the  city,  anywhere  but  in  the  palisades  of 
the  Acropolis,  and  shut  themselves  up  therein,  relying  on  divine  aid. 
But  the  vast  majority  set  to  work  to  transport  their  families  and 
their  portable  goods  to  a  place  of  safety.  For  several  days  every 
available  ship  was  pressed  into  service  to  ferry  the  exiled  multitude 
over  the  Saronic  Gulf.  Troezen,  a  town  connected  with  Athens 
both  by  traditional  ties  and  close  commercial  intercourse,  was  the 
chosen  point  of  refuge,  and  its  hospitable  citizens  not  only  received 
the  fugitives  with  kindness,  but  even  assisted  them  with  a  consider- 
able allowance  from  the  public  revenue.  Some  of  the  Athenians 
also  retired  to  Aegina,  and  a  few  went  no  further  than  Salamis, 
but  the  great  bulk  of  them  sought  the  more  distant  and  secure 
haven  in  the  Peloponnesus.  It  is  said  that  the  departing  multitude 
were  in  no  small  degree  comforted  by  the  disappearance  of  the 
sacred  snake  of  the  Acropolis  on  the  first  day  of  the  embarkation — 
a  portent  which  was  taken  to  imply  that  Athena  and  her  visible 
representative  had  quitted  the  city  in  company  with  her  worshipers. 
Probably  Themistocles  could  have  explained  the  marvel  had  he  so 
chosen.  The  last  act  of  the  Athenians  before  deserting  their  home 
was  to  pass  an  act  of  amnesty  for  all  exiles,  inviting  them  to  re- 


198  GREECE 

480  B.C. 

turn  and  help  their  brethren  in  the  day  of  adversity.  Of  the  many 
who  took  advantage  of  this  decree,  and  prepared  to  join  the  fleet, 
by  far  the  most  important  was  Aristeides,  who,  since  his  ostracism 
four  years  ago,  had  been  living  in  retirement  in  the  Peloponnese. 
The  moment  that  he  reappeared  in  the  Athenian  ranks  his  old  in- 
fluence returned  to  him,  and  he  was  not  the  man  to  use  it  amiss 
in  the  time  of  danger. 

While  the  embarkation  was  proceeding  at  the  quays  of  Pei- 
raeus  and  Phalerum,  the  armies  of  the  Great  King  were  hurrying 
through  the  plains  of  Boeotia  on  their  southward  march,  and  before 
it  was  completed  the  passes  of  Cithaeron  must  have  already  fallen 
into  their  hands.  While  the  main  body  pressed  on  for  Athens,  a 
considerable  detachment  marched  west  to  seize  Delphi,  whose  vast 
temple-treasures  were  enough  to  tempt  the  invader,  even  if  he  had 
no  conception  of  the  shock  which  he  could  inflict  on  Greek  national 
feeling  by  the  destruction  of  the  greatest  sanctuary  of  the  Hel- 
lenic world.  But  this  expedition  came  to  nought;  its  end  is  so 
shrouded  with  wild  legends  that  it  is  hard  to  ascertain  the  facts. 
We  hear  of  great  falls  of  rock  in  the  passes  of  Parnassus  which 
slew  many  of  the  Asiatics,  and  of  a  panic  fear  which  fell  upon  them 
when  the  holy  place  was  almost  in  their  grasp,  and  sent  them  crowd- 
ing back  in  groundless  terror  into  the  Boeotian  plain.  The  Del- 
phians  maintained  that  Apollo  had  interfered  in  person  to  save  his 
temple,  though  the  god  had  shown  himself  apathetic  enough  when 
his  "  loved  Didymean  dwelling "  at  Branchidae  had  been  sacked 
by  the  same  enemy,  at  the  time  of  the  Ionian  revolt.  At  any  rate, 
the  treasures  of  Delphi  remained  unspoiled,  and  the  fact  of  their 
preservation  went  far  to  rescue  the  repute  of  the  oracle  from  the 
discredit  cast  upon  it  by  the  dismal  Medizing  prophecies  which  it 
had  been  venting  during  the  previous  year. 

If  the  sanctuary  of  Apollo  remained  unscathed,  the  home  of 
Pallas  on  the  Athenian  Acropolis  had  a  very  different  fate.  The 
heads  of  the  Persian  columns  converged  on  Athens,  and  entered 
the  city  only  to  find  it  completely  deserted,  save  for  the  few  fanatics 
who  were  still  holding  out  behind  the  palisades  of  the  Acropolis. 
They  made  a  longer  defense  than  might  have  been  expected,  but 
finally  a  body  of  Persians,  scrambling  up  the  almost  impracticable 
cliff  below  the  temple  of  Aglaurus,  carried  the  place  by  escalade, 
and  slew  the  remnant  of  the  garrison  in  the  very  temple  of  Athene. 
Xerxes  was  determined  to  make  an  example  of  the  city  which  had 


SALAMIS    AND   PLATA  E  A  199 

480  B.C. 

SO  long  and  so  successfully  defied  his  father  and  himself.  Con- 
trary to  the  custom  of  the  Persians,  he  not  only  burned  all  private 
dwellings,  but  leveled  to  the  ground  the  sacred  buildings  on  the 
Acropolis,  as  if  determined  to  drive  the  gods  of  Athens  as  well  as 
her  citizens  from  their  ancient  stronghold.  So  thoroughly  did  he 
do  his  work,  and  so  completely  was  everything  overturned,  that 
many  of  the  statues  which  he  then  cast  down  remained  buried  in 
the  fragments  of  the  edifices  which  had  contained  them,  only  to  be 
unearthed  by  the  explorers  of  our  own  day. 

The  destruction  of  Athens  was  carried  out  under  the  very  eyes 
of  her  citizens,  for  the  flames  of  the  city  were  plainly  visible  from 
Salamis,  where  the  Greek  fleet  was  still  lying.  The  vessels  which 
fought  at  Artemisium  had  now  been  largely  reinforced  by  fresh 
detachments  from  various  localities ,  the  Sicyonians  had  doubled 
their  contingent,  and  the  ships  of  the  Corinthian  colonies  on  the 
west  coast  of  Greece  had  at  last  arrived.  But  except  Athens  no 
city  had  exerted  itself  to  its  utmost.  Aegina,  for  example,  kept 
more  than  half  her  fleet  at  home,  to  provide  for  her  safety  in  the 
event  of  defeat;  and  Corinth  only  put  forty  ships  into  the  confed- 
erate squadron.  Then  it  came  to  pass  that  Athens,  in  spite  of  con- 
siderable losses  at  Artemisium,  still  supplied  almost  half  the  total — 
1 80  triremes  out  of  the  378  which  lay  in  the  Salaminian  bay.  The 
Spartan  Eurybiades  still  held  nominal  command  of  the  whole,  but 
his  personal  incompetence  threw  the  settlement  of  every  important 
question  into  the  hands  of  stormy  councils  of  war.  The  admirals 
of  the  various  squadrons  were  hopelessly  at  variance;  Adeimantus 
the  Corinthian  and  the  majority  of  the  Peloponnesians  were  for 
retiring  to  the  Isthmus,  and  acting  in  close  concert  with  the  land 
army,  which  had  now  gathered  there  in  strength,  and  was  com- 
mencing to  build  a  wall  from  sea  to  sea  for  the  defense  of  the 
peninsula.  Eurybiades,  in  his  vacillating  way,  inclined  to  favor  this 
course.  But  Themistocles  was  determined  to  attack  the  Persian 
ships  the  moment  they  appeared  in  Attic  waters,  and  before  they 
could  commence  any  movement  against  the  rear  of  the  Greeks.  The 
Aeginetan  and  Megarian  admirals  adhered  to  his  opinion,  for  the 
position  at  Salamis  protected  their  cities,  which  would  be  exposed 
to  attack  from  the  sea  the  moment  the  confederate  fleet  retreated 
to  Corinth.  The  contention  was  brought  to  a  crisis  by  the  appear- 
ance of  the  Persian  armada,  which  rounded  Sunium  and  appeared 
in  the  harbor  of  Phalerum.     After  a  fruitless  discussion  many  of 


200  GREECE 

480  B.C. 

the  Peloponnesians  were  actually  preparing  to  weigh  anchor,  when 
Themistocles,  bringing  all  the  influence  of  his  vehement  personality 
to  bear  on  Eurybiacles,  procured  a  final  meeting  of  the  admirals  at 
midnight.  Here  words  grew  hot  and  furious.  Adeimantus  bade 
Themistocles,  "  a  man  who  had  no  longer  a  country,"  hold  his  peace 
and  obey.  The  xA.thenian  replied  that  the  admiral  who  had  a  hun- 
dred and  eighty  war-ships  at  his  back  could  choose  himself  a 
country  wherever  he  wished,  and  swore  that  if  the  Peloponnesians 
retired  to  tlie  Isthmus,  the  Athenian  squadron  should  separate 
itself  from  them,  take  on  board  the  fugitives  at  Troezen,  and  sail 
for  Italy,  there  to  found  a  new  Athens.  This  threat  so  disturbed 
Eurybiades  that  he  threw  all  his  influence  into  the  scale,  and  ere 
daybreak  the  council  of  war  resolved  to  stand  firm  and  offer  battle 
in  the  strait. 

The  chosen  battlefield  was  the  space  of  land-locked  water  whose 
northern  portion  forms  the  Strait  of  Salamis.  A  deep  curve  in 
the  Attic  coast  is  faced  for  the  greater  part  of  its  length  by  the 
eastern  shore  of  the  rugged  and  irregularly  shaped  island  of  Sala- 
mis, which  leaves  in  the  center  a  considerable  expanse  of  sea,  but 
sends  out  to  east  and  west  long  promontories  which  approach  the 
mainland,  and  contract  the  bay  into  a  strait.  In  the  eastern  exit 
of  this  island  sea  lie  the  harbor  and  town  of  Salamis,  where  the 
Grecian  fleet  was  moored.  Further  out,  beyond  the  strait,  and 
round  an  angle  of  the  Attic  coast,  lay  the  Persian  fleet  in  the 
harbor  of  Phalerum.  As  long  as  this  remained  the  relative  position 
of  the  two  armaments,  the  eastern  passage  was  practically  barred 
to  the  confederates,  but  they  had  full  opportunity  to  retire  on  Me- 
gara  and  Corinth  by  the  western  exit. 

In  the  vehemence  of  his  desire  to  precipitate  a  collision,  The- 
mistocles now  had  recourse  to  one  of  those  ingenious  but  unscrupu- 
lous maneuvers  which  give  the  key  to  his  character.  He  sent  by 
night  a  confidential  Asiatic  slave  to  the  Persian  camp ;  the  man  bore 
letters  to  the  king  which  protested  that  the  Athenian  admiral  was 
anxious  to  serve  him,  and  would  have  him  know  that  the  Greek 
commanders  were  about  to  retire  under  cover  of  the  darkness.  If, 
therefore,  he  wished  to  crush  his  enemies,  he  must  make  haste  to 
seize  both  entries  of  the  bay  of  Eleusis,  or  the  confederate  fleet 
would  escape  westward.  Themistocles  thus  provided  for  himself, 
whatever  the  course  of  events  might  be.  If,  as  he  hoped,  the  Per- 
sians should  proceed  to  attack,  the  battle  for  which  he  yearned  would 


SAL AM IS     AND    PLATAEA 


201 


480  B.C. 


take  place,  and  victory  would  probably  follow ;  but  if  Xerxes  either 
should  refuse  to  advance  or  should  attack  and  be  successful  he 
would  at  any  rate  be  personally  well  disposed  to  a  man  who  had 
endeavored  to  do  something  in  his  behalf. 

The  events  fell  out  exactly  as  the  ingenious  plotter  desired. 
The  Great  King,  in  fear  that  his  enemies  might  escape,  determined 
to  render  their  flight  impossible.  He  detached  a  squadron,  the 
Egyptian  contingent,  to  block  the  Alegar ian  outlet  of  the  bay,  and 


A.Gr««Ktinfccsfba,ttIc 
S.FferSicin  n    •     <• 
^     ;^  C .  5t2tt  of  XtrxtS. 


began  to  extend  his  main  fleet  across  its  nearer  mouth  close  to  the 
confederates'  anchorage.  He  even  ordered  land  troops  to  be  trans- 
ported across  to  the  small  island  of  Psyttaleia,  which  lies  off  the 
southeast  exit  of  the  bay,  in  order  that  they  might  seize  any  Greeks 
whose  vessels  might  run  ashore  upon  that  island — an  excess  of  pre- 
caution which  was  soon  to  appear  ludicrous  enough  during  the  bat- 
tle. The  confederate  admirals  were  thrown  into  a  new  fever  of 
indecision  by  the  advance  of  the  Persian  fleet,  and  spent  the  day 
in  inconclusive  debates,  during  which  several  of  the  Peloponnesians 
showed  that  their  old  design  of  absconding  was  not  even  now  for- 
gotten. But  meanwhile  the  horns  of  the  crescent  into  which  the 
hostile  squadron  had  formed  itself  were  slowly  contracting,  till 
retreat  had  grown  impossible.  At  nightfall  the  exiled  Aristeides 
made  his  appearance  among  the  Athenians,  to  announce  that  he  had 


202  GREECE 

480  B.C. 

only  just  found  it  possible  to  slip  between  the  nearest  ships  of  the 
enemy  and  the  shore,  while  his  news  was  soon  confirmed  by  de- 
serters, who  reported  that  a  complete  blockade  of  the  Strait  of 
Salamis  had  been  established.    A  battle  next  day  was  inevitable. 

The  Persian  king  had  still  about  a  thousand  vessels,  in  spite 
of  all  his  losses  by  war  and  shipwreck.  He  had  enclosed  his  ene- 
mies in  a  position  where  defeat  must  mean  destruction,  and  felt  no 
doubt  of  the  result.  His  crews  were  roused  to  unusual  excitement 
by  the  fact  that  they  were  to  fight  under  his  own  royal  eye.  For 
on  the  slope  of  Mount  Aegialeus,  overlooking  the  bay,  a  splendid 
throne  had  been  erected,  and  on  it  the  king  took  his  seat,  sur- 
rounded by  his  princes  and  courtiers,  and  well  furnished  with 
scribes,  who  were  to  take  down  the  names  and  actions  of  all  who 
distinguished  themselves  in  the  coming  engagement.  Not  a  soul 
had  ventured  to  raise  a  doubt  as  to  the  policy  of  fighting,  save  Ar- 
temisia, the  widowed  Queen  of  Halicarnassus,  who  had  headed 
her  own  squadron  on  the  expedition,  and  more  than  once  displayed 
prudence  and  foresight  which  should  have  been  invaluable  to  the 
king.  But  Xerxes  treated  her  advice,  to  attack  the  Isthmus  by 
land  before  joining  battle  by  sea,  with  quiet  disregard,  and  no  one 
else  had  the  temerity  to  run  counter  to  the  royal  will. 

By  the  desertion  of  two  vessels,  a  Lemnian  and  a  Tenian,  from 
the  enemy,  the  Greek  armament  had  been  raised  to  380  sail.  Re- 
treat was  completely  cut  off,  so  that  it  was  for  every  man  a  question 
of  victory  or  destruction ;  and  there  was  no  opportunity  for  faint- 
hearted captains  to  edge  away  and  make  for  the  open  sea,  as  the 
Samians  had  done  with  such  fatal  result  fifteen  years  before,  at  the 
battle  of  Lade.  The  Athenians  and  Aeginetans,  who  formed  the 
majority  of  the  combatants,  were  ready  enough  for  the  fight;  while 
the  Peloponnesians,  though  they  had  wished  to  avoid  .an  engage- 
ment, had  no  temptations  to  slackness  now  that  one  had  become 
inevitable.  The  generals  did  their  best  to  encourage  their  men  by 
citing  such  prophecies  and  oracles  as  seemed  to  portend  a  victory 
for  Greece,  and  even  fetched  out  and  placed  on  shipboard  the 
images  of  Ajax  and  his  kinsmen,  the  tutelary  heroes  of  Salamis, 
as  if  to  make  them  their  leaders  in  a  fight  which  seemed  to  repro- 
duce the  old  struggle  with  Asia  in  the  mythic  days  of  Troy.  But 
no  less  important  than  the  moral  advantages  of  the  Greeks  was  the 
character  of  the  waters  in  which  they  were  about  to  fight.  The  sea- 
room  was  so  confined,  and  so  hampered  with  reefs,  promontories 


SALAMIS     ANDPLATAEA  203 

480  B.C. 

and  islands,  that  the  king's  admirals  could  not  make  full  use  of 
their  overwhelming  numbers,  while  their  inferior  seamanship  and 
want  of  knowledge  of  the  localities  led  to  overcrowding,  stranding, 
and  other  small  mishaps  long  before  the  battle  began. 

Next  morning  each  fleet  discerned  the  other  drawn  up  in 
battle  array.  On  the  side  of  the  confederates  the  Athenian  squad- 
ron held  the  left  wing,  the  Euboeans  and  Aeginetans  the  center, 
the  Corinthians  and  other  Peloponnesian  contingents  the  right,  the 
place  of  honor;  here,  too,  Eurybiades,  the  commander-in-chief,  with 
his  sixteen  ships  from  Laconia,  took  his  station.  Among  the  bar- 
barians the  Phoenicians  were  on  the  right,  facing  the  Athenians, 
the  Cilicians  and  Pamphylians  in  the  center,  and  the  Ionian  squad- 
rons on  the  left. 

The  day  was  rough,  a  southwest  wind  was  blowing  across  the 
breadth  of  the  bay,  and  the  surf  ran  high.  Nevertheless  it  was 
the  king's  fleet  which  made  the  first  movement.  Rowing  against 
wnnd  and  tide,  and  suffering  much  from  overcrowding,  they  slowly 
and  laboriously  advanced.  For  a  moment  the  Greeks  hung  back, 
close  to  the  land  and  their  anchorage ;  then  Ameinias  of  Pallene,  an 
Athenian  trierarch,  shot  out  from  the  line  and  rammed  a  Sidonian 
vessel.  Ship  after  ship  followed  him,  and  soon  battle  had  been 
joined  all  along  the  strait,  and  the  water  was  covered  by  a  con- 
fused medley  of  galleys,  circling  round  each  other,  and  seeking 
opportunity  to  ram,  or  locked  in  close  combat,  where  the  press  was 
thicker  and  no  room  for  maneuvering  remained.  On  neither  side  was 
much  strategy  displayed ;  the  day  was  decided  by  the  superior  sea- 
manship and  determination  of  the  confederates,  not  by  the  ability 
of  their  admirals.  Before  long  it  was  evident  that  the  barbarians 
were  gaining  no  advantage,  but  their  confidence  in  gross  numbers 
kept  them  from  panic,  and  there  were  ships  unnumbered  ready  to 
press  forward  into  the  fighting  line  to  replace  disabled  consorts. 
Even  the  lonians.  on  whose  desertion  many  of  the  Greeks  had  been 
relying,  showed  no  reluctance  to  engage,  and  took  their  full  share 
of  the  action.  For  many  hours  the  conflict  showed  no  signs  of 
slackening,  and  the  king,  as  he  sat  on  Aegialeus,  with  his  scribes 
at  his  feet,  gazing  on  the  vast  panorama  in  the  bay,  had  time 
enough  to  note  down  many  a  bold  deed  of  friend  and  foe.  But  at 
last  the  current  of  the  fight  began  to  set  markedly  towards  the  south 
and  east ;  numbers  of  Persian  ships  dropped  out  of  the  line  disabled, 
and  ran  ashore,  or  drifted  down  the  coast;  the  rest  fell  more  and 


204  GREECE 

480  B.C. 

more  into  confusion,  huddling  into  helpless  masses,  and  fighting 
purely  on  the  defensive.  Finally  their  losses  began  to  tell  on  them. 
The  king's  brother,  Ariabignes,  who  held  the  supreme  command, 
fell  as  he  was  attempting  to  board  an  Athenian  vessel,  and  about 
nightfall  the  broken  fleet  reeled  slowly  back  to  the  Attic  coast  and 
took  refuge  with  the  land  army,  which  had  moved  down  to  the 
beach  to  assist  it.  Most  of  its  rearmost  vessels  were  cut  off  by 
the  Athenians  and  Aeginetans,  Vv'ho  pressed  their  victory  home, 
and  chased  the  enemy  till  he  was  absolutely  out  of  reach.  To  crown 
the  day,  Aristeides  embarked  some  Athenian  hoplites  from  the  town 
of  Salamis,  and  putting  them  ashore  on  Psyttaleia,  cut  to  pieces 
the  Persian  detachment  which  had  landed  there,  and  was  now  com- 
pletely isolated  by  the  falling  back  of  the  fleet. 

So  ended  the  battle  of  Salamis.  Balancing  the  mere  loss  of 
ships,  we  find  that  the  king's  fleet  had  been  diminished  by  some 
two  hundred  vessels,  while  the  Greeks  were  only  weakened  by 
forty.  The  victory,  therefore,  though  decisive  enough,  was  far 
from  being  a  crushing  one,  and  the  barbarians  still  outnumbered  the 
Hellenes  by  more  than  two  to  one.  But  all  spirit  had  been  taken 
out  of  the  vanquished.  The  Phoenicians  accused  the  lonians  of 
having  lost  the  battle  by  their  slackness;  while  the  lonians  fully 
made  up  their  minds  that  they  were  on  the  losing  side,  and  resolved 
to  quit  it  as  soon  as  possible.  Xerxes  was  profoundly  disgusted 
with  his  fleet,  and  began  to  deem  that  uncertain  element,  the  sea, 
unworthy  of  his  royal  notice.  At  the  same  time  he  realized  that, 
if  he  was  no  longer  master  of  the  Aegean,  his  homeward  route  by 
the  long  circuit  back  to  the  bridge  on  the  Hellespont  was  in  no 
small  danger.  When  once  his  self-confidence  was  abated,  regard 
for  his  own  valuable  person  began  to  assume  the  most  prominent 
place  in  his  thoughts,  and  those  of  his  courtiers  who  could  read  the 
signs  of  the  times  were  quick  to  fall  in  with  his  new  disposition. 

On  the  Greek  side  the  revulsion  of  feeling  was  no  less  great. 
There  were  few  who,  with  Themistocles,  had  foreseen  a  victory 
from  the  first;  the  majority,  even  among  the  Athenians,  had  ac- 
cepted the  battle  as  the  last  desperate  chance  in  a  hazardous  game; 
many  had  not  fought  voluntarily  at  all,  but  merely  because  their 
retreat  was  cut  off  and  no  other  alternative  remained.  The  suc- 
cess which  they  had  won  with  such  small  loss  completely  changed 
their  spirit,  and  for  the  future  the  Greeks  by  sea  were  inclined  to 
recklessness  rather  than  fear,  and  thought  of  nothing  but  taking 


SALAMIS     ANDPLATAEA  205 

480  B.C. 

the  offensive.  More  than  any  others  did  the  Athenians  rise  to  this 
pitch  of  elation:  they  had  staked  everything  on  the  battle;  they 
alone,  by  the  numbers  of  their  contingent,  had  made  victory  pos- 
sible; their  general  had  been  the  one  consistent  prophet  of  good 
fortune,  and  they  rightly  felt  that  the  credit  of  the  day  was  almost 
entirely  their  own.  The  council  of  admirals,  indeed,  awarded  the 
prize  of  valor  to  an  Aeginetan,  and  presented  Eurybiades  with 
a  wreath  of  honor,  but  their  partial  decision  deceived  nobody ;  Ath- 
ens and  Themistocles  were  entitled  to  the  glory  of  having  saved 
Greece. 

For  a  few  days  after  the  battle  Xerxes  kept  up  a  show  of  per- 
severance ;  his  army  commenced  to  construct  a  broad  mole  out  from 
the  mainland,  as  if  he  were  determined  to  win  Salamis  by  military 
if  not  by  naval  operations.  But  this  was  only  a  cover  to  his  real 
design ;  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  return  home.  Mardonius,  who 
had  been  the  most  prominent  supporter  of  the  expedition,  and  still 
hoped  to  bring  it  to  a  successful  end,  supplied  him  with  a  plausible 
excuse.  Athens,  he  said,  had  been  the  city  at  which  the  Great  King's 
wrath  had  been  directed,  and  now  that  Athens  was  a  mass 
of  smoking  ruins,  the  object  of  the  invasion  had  been  fulfilled.  The 
minor  task  of  finishing  the  campaign  might  be  left  to  inferior  hands. 
Let  the  king,  therefore,  return  to  Susa,  and  leave  some  satrap  with 
an  adequate  force  to  complete  the  subjection  of  Hellas.  Xerxes 
eagerly  accepted  his  view ;  he  bade  Mardonius  choose  what  troops 
he  washed,  and  announced  his  intention  of  returning  home  with  the 
remainder.  His  departure  is  said  to  have  been  hastened  by  a  secret 
message  from  Themistocles,  who  again  dispatched  his  confidential 
slave  to  the  mainland,  to  inform  the  king  that  he  had  with  great 
difficulty  induced  the  admirals  to  postpone  sailing  to  the  Hellespont 
to  destroy  the  bridge  of  boats,  and  that  it  would  undoubtedly  be 
attacked  ere  long.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Themistocles  himself  had 
advised  this  step,  but  Eurybiades  had  found  it  too  rash,  and 
prevented  any  such  design  from  being  taken  in  hand. 

Accordingly  Mardonius  chose  the  best  troops  of  the  army — all 
the  Persians,  including  the  king's  body-guard,  together  with  the 
Median  Sacan  and  Bactrian  contingents,  and  many  smaller  bodies 
from  other  nations.  The  rest  of  the  host  set  out  with  the  king  to 
retrace  the  long  road  through  Boeotia,  Thessaly,  and  Macedonia  by 
which  they  had  advanced.  The  satrap  Artabazus,  with  sixty  thou- 
sand picked  men,  brought  up  the  rear,  and  after  covering  the  march 


206  GREECE 

480-479  B.C. 

of  the  main  body  as  far  as  the  Hellespont,  remained  behind  to 
overawe  the  Macedonians  and  keep  up  communications  between 
Mardonius  and  Asia.  The  Persians  are  said  to  have  suffered  severe 
privations  on  their  return  journey;  for  the  magazines  which  had 
supplied  them  during  their  advance  were  no  longer  full,  and  the 
season  had  grown  late  and  was  now  verging  on  winter.  It  was 
with  ranks  much  thinned  by  dysentery  and  exposure  to  the  bleak 
Thracian  climate  that  Xerxes  reached  Abydos.  There  he  found 
the  bridge  broken  by  the  storms  of  the  equinox,  and  was  compelled 
to  cross  on  shipboard.  His  army  was  slowly  ferried  over,  and 
followed  him  back  to  Sardis  in  a  sufficiently  depressed  and  disconso- 
late frame  of  mind. 

Meanwhile  the  Persian  fleet  had  left  the  ports  of  Athens  at  the 
same  time  that  Xerxes  set  out  on  his  return.  Sailing  by  night,  the 
defeated  armada  ingloriously  made  off  for  the  Hellespont.  It 
reached  Abydos  long  before  the  land  army,  and  protected  the  pas- 
sage of  the  king,  which  was  not  molested  by  the  Greeks.  Then 
part  of  it,  apparently  the  Phoenician  squadrons,  went  home;  while 
the  western  contingents  wintered  at  the  harbor  of  Cyme  in  Aeolis. 
The  Greek  admirals,  with  a  vague  dread  of  the  power  of  Persia 
still  hanging  about  them,  made  no  attempt  to  pursue  the  enemy. 
They  contented  themselves  w^th  sailing  to  the  nearer  Cyclades  and 
compelling  the  islanders  to  throw  off  their  lately  sworn  allegiance 
to  Persia.  The  Andrians  alone  made  resistance,  and  had  their 
land  ravaged;  the  Parians  and  some  others  got  their  submission 
more  easily  accepted  by  sending  large  bribes  in  secret  to  Themis- 
tocles,  who  readily  made  their  peace  for  them  with  the  other  con- 
federate admirals.  After  a  solemn  visit  to  the  Isthmus,  where  the 
booty  of  Salamis  was  divided  up,  and  large  offerings  made  to  the 
national  gods — not  even  the  Medizing  Apollo  of  Delphi  being 
omitted — the  various  squadrons  dispersed  to  their  native  cities. 

The  winter  of  480-479  b.c.  was  long  protracted,  and  more 
than  six  months  elapsed  before  warlike  operations  recommenced. 
Mardonius  drew  back  his  army  far  to  the  north,  cantoning  the 
greater  part  of  it  in  the  towns  of  Thessaly.  His  Boeotian  allies 
kept  to  their  own  territories  north  of  the  range  of  Cithaeron,  and 
Attica  was,  therefore,  left  unoccupied.  This  emboldened  the 
Athenians  to  return  to  their  ruined  city,  and  to  bring  over  their 
families  from  Troezen.  They  were  already  beginning  to  restore 
their  dilapidated  dwellings,  when  they  received  a  warning  that  their 


SALAMIS     ANDPLATAEA  207 

480-479  B.C. 

troubles  were  not  yet  ended.  In  the  early  spring-  Alexander  the  Mace- 
donian appeared  among  them,  bearing  a  message  from  Mardonius. 
The  Persian,  anxious  to  detach  the  Athenians  from  the  league  of 
Greece,  proposed  to  them  terms  such  as  the  Great  King  had  never 
before  deigned  to  proffer  to  an  ally.  In  return  for  withdrawing 
from  their  opposition,  they  were  not  only  to  retain  complete  inde- 
pendence, but  to  be  allowed  to  annex  as  much  of  their  neighbors' 
territory  as  they  might  choose,  and  to  receive  from  Xerxes  a  sum 
large  enough  to  enable  them  to  restore  all  the  ruins  of  their  temples 
and  dwellings.  Refusal  was  to  be  punished  by  a  second  occupation 
of  the  city,  when  the  campaigning  season  came  round.  But  it  was 
not  likely  that,  after  Salamis,  the  Athenians  would  desert  a  cause  to 
which  they  had  been  faithful  in  the  darkest  hour.  They  sent  away 
the  Macedonian  prince  with  a  defiant  reply,  and  stoically  awaited 
the  chances  of  war. 

Mardonius  was  as  good  as  his  word.  When  spring  arrived  his 
army  came  flooding  southward  from  Thessaly,  and  then,  swollen 
by  the  contingents  of  Boeotia,  swept  over  the  crest  of  Cithaeron 
and  into  the  Thriasian  plain.  The  Athenians  had  been  hoping  that 
their  allies  from  Peloponnesus  would  come  out  in  full  force  from 
the  Isthmus  and  help  them  to  hold  the  passes  of  Cithaeron  against 
the  Persian.  But  the  Spartans  had  not  yet  given  up  their  old 
scheme  of  making  the  wall  in  front  of  Corinth,  now  completed  into 
a  substantial  fortification,  their  line  of  defense.  Not  a  hoplite 
appeared  to  defend  Attica,  and  the  Athenians  were  constrained 
once  more  to  put  their  families  on  shipboard  and  escape  to  Troezen 
and  Salamis.  Exactly  ten  months  after  Xerxes  had  first  entered 
Athens,  Mardonius  appeared  in  front  of  its  deserted  walls  and 
occupied  them  without  resistance.  The  Athenians  were  in  high 
dudgeon  at  the  isolation  in  which  they  were  left;  they  sent  ambas- 
sadors to  Sparta  to  upbraid  their  selfish  confederates,  and  to  en- 
deavor to  drive  them  forward  by  hinting  that  they  still  had  before 
them  the  proposals  made  by  Alexander  of  Macedon,  and  might  be 
driven  to  accept  them  if  no  help  came.  This  threat  secretly  moved 
the  ephors,  but  they  determined  to  conceal  their  perturbation  from 
the  Athenians,  and  put  off  the  ambassadors  some  days  before  giving 
them  an  answer,  alleging  as  an  excuse  the  fact  that  their  great 
festival,  the  Hyacinthia,  was  at  that  moment  being  celebrated.  They 
then  collected  five  thousand  Spartans, — more  than  half  the  available 
force  of  the  state, — placed  Pausanias,  the  nephew  of  Leonidas,  in 


208  GREECE 

479  B.C. 

command,  and  started  them  off  by  night  to  march  northward. 
Thus,  when  the  Athenian  ambassadors  received  their  audience,  they 
learned  to  their  surprise  that  the  Spartan  army  was  already  far 
advanced  towards  the  Isthmus,  and  had  its  orders  to  go  beyond  it. 
Five  thousand  hoplites  of  the  Perioeci  accompanied  the  ambassadors 
on  their  return  journey,  and  soon  it  became  apparent  that  the 
whole  of  the  Peloponnese  was  on  the  march.  All  the  contingents 
of  the  states  that  owned  the  hegemony  of  Sparta  came  flocking  into 
Corinth;  then  the  whole  body,  an  army  such  as  Greece  had  never 
before  put  in  the  field,  advanced  to  Megara  and  Eleusis.  At  the  latter 
place  they  were  joined  by  eight  thousand  Athenian  hoplites,  who 
crossed  the  strait  from  Salamis.  But  they  did  not  find  Mardonius 
in  front  of  them  and  offering  battle,  as  they  had  expected.  On 
their  approach  the  satrap,  after  directing  a  cavalry  reconnoissance 
as  far  as  the  gates  of  Megara — the  furthest  point  to  the  west  which 
the  Persian  arms  reached — had  evacuated  Athens.  He  carefully 
destroyed  any  remains  of  the  temples  and  walls  that  had  escaped 
the  first  occupation,  and  leveled  the  new  buildings  which  had  been 
commenced  in  the  winter.  Then  he  marched  across  the  front  of 
the  advancing  Greek  army,  passed  Cithaeron,  and  setted  down  in 
the  valley  of  the  Asopus.  Here  he  offered  battle  in  the  plain  of 
Southern  Boeotia.  His  camp,  surrounded  by  an  earthen  rampart 
which  formed  a  square  of  ten  furlongs,  was  pitched  by  the  river, 
facing  towards  Plataea,  the  spot  on  which  the  roads  leading  from 
Megara  and  the  Peloponnese  into  Boeotia  converge.  The  Greeks 
lay  above  on  the  hillside,  for  they  did  not  dare  to  come  down  into 
the  plain  on  account  of  the  large  bodies  of  horse  which  Mardonius 
could  put  into  the  field.  As  the  two  armies  were  posted,  the 
Persian  threatened  equally  the  two  passes  into  Attica  and  that 
which  leads  through  the  Megarid  towards  the  Corinthian  Isthmus. 
Similarly,  the  Greeks  were  posted  so  that  they  could  attack  Mar- 
donius at  advantage  in  the  hilly  ground,  if  he  moved  forward  on 
either  of  these  lines  of  communication.  For  some  time  the  two 
armies  faced  each  other,  each  expecting  the  other  to  make  the 
decisive  move.  Mardonius  was  determined  not  to  attack  the 
Greeks  on  hilly  ground,  remembering  Thermopylae.  Pausanius, 
though  a  brave  and  ambitious  man,  had  no  military  judgment  or 
power  of  initiative,  and  feared  that  the  morale  of  many  of  his 
troops  was  bad. 

The  Greek  army  had  now  swelled  to  more  than  a  hundred 


SAL  A  MIS    ANDPLATAEA  209 

479  B.C. 

thousand  men,  of  whom  nearly  forty  thousand  were  troops  of  the 
line,  hoplites  in  full  brazen  panoply,  such  as  no  Asiatic  force  of 
anything  like  equal  numbers  could  hope  to  resist.^  Yet  there  were 
still  many  contingents  due ;  the  Eleians  and  Mantineans  alone,  who 
were  expected  every  day,  were  bringing  up  at  least  five  or  six  thou- 
sand hoplites  more.  The  strength  of  Mardonius  we  cannot  so 
easily  calculate;  but,  including  his  Greek  allies,  he  must  have  had 
at  least  twice  or  three  times  the  numbers  of  Pausanias. 

After  some  days  Mardonius  sent  bodies  of  cavalry  up  the 
gentler  part  of  the  slopes  of  the  Greek  position,  to  annoy  the  con- 
federates and  tempt  them  to  advance.  There  was  hot  skirmishing 
in  the  center  of  the  Greek  army,  but  it  terminated  in  the  complete 
repulse  of  the  Persians,  who  left  Masistius,  commander  of  the 
cavalry  of  the  whole  army,  dead  on  the  field  within  the  Greek  lines. 

This  emboldened  Pausanias  to  come  down  more  into  the  plain : 
the  first  dread  of  the  Persian  cavalry  had  passed  away,  now  that 
it  was  discovered  to  be  by  no  means  invincible.  Accordingly  the 
Greeks  marched  westward,  and  drew  up  upon  a  line  of  hillocks 
which  run  out  from  Cithaeron  some  two  miles  and  a  half  in  front 
of  Plataea,  hard  by  the  fountain  of  Gargaphia.  The  Spartans  held 
the  right  wing,  nearest  to  the  mountains ;  the  other  Peloponnesians 
formed  the  center ;  while  the  Athenians  on  the  left-wing  lay  farthest 
out  in  the  plain.  For  ten  days  they  lay  in  this  position,  with  the 
Asopus  between  them  and  the  enemy.  They  were,  however,  much 
annoyed  by  the  Persian  cavalry,  who  stopped  up  the  neighboring 
spring  from  which  they  drew  their  water,  and  sometimes  rode  round 
their  flanks  and  intercepted  the  convoys  which  brought  up  provisions 
from  Megara.  Pausanias  was  still  unable  to  make  up  his  mind  to 
attack,  and  had  the  tameness  of  spirit  to  determine  on  drawing  his 
army  back  nearer  to  Plataea,  to  a  position  where  water  was  more 
abundant  and  the  slopes  less  exposed  to  cavalry  raids.  Accordingly 
the  army  commenced  its  retreat  by  night;  but  everything  went 
wrong  with  the  movement.  The  Peloponnesians  of  the  center 
started  off  in  a  hurry,  and  did  not  halt  in  the  chosen  position,  but 
a  mile  too  far  to  the  rear.  The  Spartans  delayed  till  nearly  day; 
for  one  commander  of  a  brigade  obstinately  refused  to  believe  in  a 
retreat,  and  had  to  be  convinced  by  Pausanias  himself  before  he 
would  move.  The  Athenians  waited  for  the  Lacedaemonians  to 
retire  before  they  themselves  went  back.     Hence  it  came  to  pass 

1  Herodotus  gives,  in  ix.  28,  29,  the  full  muster-roll  of  the  Greeks. 


210 


GREECE 


479  B.C. 

that  when  day  broke  the  Persians  saw  that  the  Greek  center  had 
disappeared,  while  the  two  wings  were  retreating  across  the  rolhng 
ground  towards  Plataea,  without  any  connection  between  their 
movements. 

Mardonius  thought  his  opportunity  had  come,  and  salHed  forth 


Thethrre  positions  oftiheGreeKArmy^ 
before  the  ba,ttle  of  Plataea- 1 


with  horse  and  foot,  taking  no  trouble  to  form  a  line  of  battle,  but 
hurrying  on  to  catch  the  enemy  before  they  could  take  up  a  position. 
It  looked  as  if  the  Greeks  were  lost,  but  despair  gave  Pausanias  the 
necessary  courage ;  he  fronted  up  the  portion  of  the  army  that  was 
with  him — ten  thousand  Spartan  and  Laconian  hoplites,  fifteen 
hundred  Arcadians  of  Tegea,  and  a  mass  of  some  thirty-five  thou- 


SALAMIS    ANDPLATAEA  211 

479  B.C. 

sand  Helots  and  other  light  troops.  Then,  after  sending  off  to 
tell  the  Athenians  that  he  was  going  to  fight,  he  dashed  at  the  con- 
fused mass  of  pursuers  that  was  streaming  after  him.  Here  the 
Persians  were  in  front,  while  the  rest  of  the  army  was  hurrying  up 
from  the  camp  in  great  disorder,  and  was  not  yet  on  the  field.  The 
Persians  set  their  large  wicker  shields  on  the  ground  before  them, 
and  began  to  ply  their  bows,  but  after  they  had  let  fly  a  few  volleys 
the  Greek  line  came  crashing  down  upon  them,  rolled  over  the 
barrier  of  shields,  and  fell  to  work  at  close  quarters  with  sword 
and  lance.  There  was  half  an  hour  of  hard  fighting,  for  the  picked 
troops  of  the  army  of  Mardonius  stood  their  ground  like  men.  But 
their  short  swords  and  quilted  tunics  were  not  a  fair  match  for  the 
heavy  pike  and  complete  mail  of  the  Spartans.  They  began  to 
fall  back  towards  the  river,  and  rolled  in  upon  the  hordes  that  were 
advancing  to  join  them.  Mardonius  was  struck  down  by  a  stone; 
no  officer  came  forward  to  take  his  place,  and  the  whole  vast  body 
of  Asiatics  broke  up  in  disorder.  Artabazus,  who  led  the  rear, 
drew  off  his  forty  thousand  men  and  retired  In  safety  on  the  road 
which  led  to  the  northwest.  He  started  off  with  all  speed,  and 
marched  day  and  night,  everywhere  preceding  the  rumor  of  the 
disaster,  so  that  he  got  safely  away  to  Thessaly,  and  finally  reached 
Asia.  No  doubt  he  was  followed  by  many  other  scattered  bodies. 
But  the  mass  of  the  Asiatics  fell  back  on  their  fortified  camp  beyond 
the  Asopus,  and  then  turned  to  bay. 

Meanwhile,  far  to  the  left,  a  separate  battle  had  been  going  on 
between  the  Athenians  and  the  Boeotian  contingent  of  the  Persian 
army.  It  raged  until  the  Boeotians  saw  that  their  main  body  was 
routed;  then  they  gave  way  and  retreated  on  Thebes.  The  Athe- 
nians did  not  pursue  them,  but  marched  on  the  Persian  camp,  where 
they  found  the  Spartans  vainly  endeavoring  to  force  an  entrance. 
Presently  the  Greek  center  also  appeared,  too  late  to  take  any  part 
in  the  main  battle.  It  had  not  seen  an  enemy,  except  one  stray 
body  of  Theban  horse,  which  caught  the  Megarian  contingent  on 
the  march,  and  slew  six  hundred  men  before  It  was  driven  off. 

After  some  severe  fighting  at  the  palisades  of  the  entrenched 
camp,  the  Athenians  and  Tegeans  burst  their  way  in.  The  rest 
followed,  and  then  the  resistance  of  the  Orientals  suddenly  collapsed. 
They  let  themselves  be  butchered  without  a  struggle,  till  the  corpses 
lay  massed  In  heaps  in  every  corner  of  the  camp.  Nothing  put  an 
end  to  the  slaughter  but  the  weariness  of  the  conquerors.     The  spoil 


212  GREECE 

479  B.C. 

which  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Greeks  was  enormous :  the  camp 
equipage  of  the  Persian  officers  comprised  cups  and  dishes  of  silver 
and  gold,  rich  stuffs  and  hangings,  and  troops  of  slaves  and  con- 
cubines; even  their  inlaid  weapons  and  armor  were  of  very  consid- 
erable value;  horses,  camels,  and  mules  in  countless  numbers  were 
also  captured.  It  was  a  booty  such  as  no  Greeks  had  ever  divided 
before. 

Plataea  was  fought  and  won  in  the  most  unscientific  way;  not 
even  at  Inkerman  was  the  generalship  more  wanting  on  both  sides. 
But  the  victory  was  none  the  less  decisive:  while  the  victors  only 
lost  thirteen  hundred  men,  the  Persian  army  was  annihilated ; 
nothing  was  left  of  it  save  broken  bands  flying  northward  towards 
the  Hellespont.  All  that  remained  to  be  done  was  to  punish  the 
traitors  in  Greece.  A  few  days  after  the  battle  the  army  marched 
on  Thebes  and  laid  siege  to  it ;  ere  long  the  town  had  to  surrender. 
It  was  punished  by  the  public  execution  of  the  leaders  of  its  oli- 
garchy, and  deprived  of  its  presidency  in  the  Boeotian  League, 
which  seems  to  have  fallen  for  a  time  to  Tanagra.  The  other  allies 
of  Persia  submitted  without  striking  a  blow. 

On  the  very  day  on  which  the  battle  of  Plataea  had  been  fought, 
another  engagement  of  great  importance  had  taken  place  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Aegean.  At  the  same  time  that  the  Greek  army 
marched  for  Boeotia,  a  confederate  fleet  of  one  hundred  and  ten 
ships  had  been  collected  at  Aegina,  under  the  Spartan  King  Leoty- 
chides  and  the  Athenian  Xanthippus.  This  squadron  was  destined 
to  create  a  diversion  in  Asiatic  waters,  and  to  watch  the  remnant 
of  the  Persian  fleet,  of  which  three  hundred  vessels  still  lay  off  the 
coast  of  Ionia.  Moreover,  there  was  some  hope  that  the  Greeks 
of  Asia,  especially  the  islanders,  would  rise  in  revolt  when  they 
saw  the  confederate  fleet  at  hand. 

Accordingly  the  Greeks  advanced  as  far  as  Delos;  here  they 
received  emissaries  from  Samos  promising  active  assistance,  and 
heard  that  an  outbreak  had  already  taken  place  at  Chios.  This 
emboldened  them  to  push  out  and  search  for  the  Persian  fleet.  They 
found  it  drawn  ashore  on  the  promontory  of  Mycale,  not  far  from 
Miletus.  A  considerable  land  force,  sent  down  from  Sardis,  lay 
encamped  beside  the  fleet.  With  a  promptness  and  decision  which 
contrasts  very  strongly  with  the  slowness  and  timidity  of  Pausanias 
at  Plataea,  Leotychides  and  Xanthippus  determined  on  an  imme- 
diate attack.     They  landed  on  the  mainland  and  marched  straight 


sala:mis   and   plataea 


213 


479   B.C. 


on  the  Persian  camp.  The  enemy  came  out  to  meet  them,  and  a 
protracted  struggle  was  fought  on  the  shore,  which  ended  in  the 
retreat  of  the  Asiatics  towards  their  entrenched  camp.  Here  a 
second  contest  raged,  but  it  was  short,  for  the  Athenians  and  Corin- 
thians got  in  at  the  gates  along  with  the  flying  foe.  Then  the 
Persians  dispersed  and  took  to  the  hills,  leaving  both  their  camp  and 
their  three  hundred  ships  on  the  shore  in  the  hands  of  the  victors. 
The  loss  of  the  Greeks  was  heavy,  that  of  their  enemies  enormous, 
and  many  of  the  fugitives  were  cut  off  by  the  Milesians,  who  now 
rebelled  openly,  and  beset  the  passes  through  which  the  Persians 
fled. 

Such  was  the  end  of  the  Persian  dominion  in  Ionia;  for  the 
moment  that  the  battle  was  known  all  the  islands  threw  off  their 


GRUCC  DURINS  THE  INVASION  Of  XERXES 

4  80>479B.C. 


allegiance  to  Xerxes,  and  as  many  of  the  mainland  towns  as  dared 
followed  their  example.  The  Great  King  made  his  way  home  to 
Susa,  not  only  without  having  gained  the  new  provinces  he  had 
coveted,  but  having  actually  lost  the  greater  part  of  one  of  his  own 
satrapies. 


Chapter  XXI 

GREEKS  OF  ITALY  AND  SICILY,  600-465  B.C. 

WHILE  the  recorded  history  of  the  states  of  Greece  be- 
comes fairly  continuous  in  the  seventh  century,  that  of 
the  colonies  of  Sicily  and  Magna  Graecia  remains  very 
fragmentary  till  the  end  of  the  sixth.  This  is  but  natural;  the 
earlier  years  of  the  existence  of  these  cities  must  have  been  occupied 
with  little  more  than  monotonous  increase  and  expansion,  and 
obscure  wars  with  the  tribes  of  the  inland.  It  would  not  be  until 
they  had  arrived  at  their  full  maturity,  and  found  leisure  for  other 
things  than  mere  growth,  that  their  annals  were  likely  to  become 
important. 

Of  the  relations  of  the  Greeks  of  Italy  and  Sicily  with  their 
barbarian  neighbors  there  is  little  to  tell  before  the  fifth  century. 
The  Oenotrians  and  Messapians  of  the  one  country,  the  Sicels  and 
Sicanians  of  the  other,  gave  little  trouble  to  the  immigrants.  But 
behind  these  feeble  tribes  there  loomed  in  the  distance  two  great 
powers  with  whom  the  Greeks  were  one  day  to  be  engaged  in  des- 
perate struggles.  The  colonists  of  Cumae  and  Neapolis  dwelt  hard 
by  the  Etruscan ;  those  of  Selinus  and  Himera  were  the  immediate 
neighbors  of  the  Carthaginian  merchants  of  Panormus  and  Lily- 
baeum.  But  it  would  seem  that  these  nations  were  very  seldom 
provoked  to  war  by  the  growth  of  the  Greek  states  till  the  com- 
mencement of  the  fifth  century.  Nor  was  it  till  the  end  of  that 
period  that  the  warlike  Sabellian  tribes  came  wandering  down 
Central  Italy,  and  commenced  to  cut  short  the  dominions  of  the 
states  of  Magna  Graecia;  then  only  do  the  names  of  the  Samnite 
or  the  Lucanian  begin  to  be  heard. 

Among  the  Italiot  Greeks  the  most  important  events  of  the 
sixth  century  are  connected  with  the  curious  story  of  the  Pythag- 
orean brotherhoods.  Pythagoras  was  a  celebrated  philosopher, 
a  Samian  by  birth,  but  a  resident  in  Italy  by  choice.  His  tenets 
were  strange  and  fanciful — including  such  beliefs  as  the  transmigra- 
tion of  souls,  and  the  mystic  meaning  of  arithmetical  numbers; 
but  he  imported  a  moral  earnestness  and  a  religious  fervor  into  his 

214 


ITALY    AND    SICILY  215 

Circa  529  B.C. 

teaching  which  secured  him  many  disciples.  These  followers  were 
formed  into  societies,  and  bound  themselves  by  oath  to  assist  each 
other  as  well  in  temporal  matters  as  in  the  diffusion  of  the  Pythag- 
orean philosophy.  No  member  was  admitted  without  long  pro- 
bation, and  the  societies  were  divided  into  a  hierarchy  of  grades, 
through  which  the  aspirant  had  to  pass  before  becoming  fully 
initiated.  It  may,  therefore,  be  said  that  the  organization  of  these 
brotherhoods  had  a  considerable  resemblance  to  that  of  the  Free- 
masons of  our  own  day.  But  they  were  far  from  preserving  the 
character  of  societies  for  mutual  benevolence  and  philosophic  life, 
and  very  soon  took  to  interfering  in  politics.  They  fostered  such  a 
feeling  of  clanship,  and  such  contempt  for  the  unphilosophic  multi- 
tude, that  the  Pythagoreans  were  ere  long  found  acting  as  an 
organized  party  in  the  Italiot  cities.  Their  strongest  seat  was  at 
Croton,  where  the  philosopher  himself  had  settled,  and  where  many 
of  the  leading  men  had  become  his  disciples.  Everywhere  they 
are  found  on  the  side  of  oligarchy;  the  teaching  of  Pythagoras  was 
too  subtle  to  attract  the  ignorant  masses,  and  lent  a  sanction  to  the 
contempt  which  the  upper  classes  nourished  for  the  proletariate. 
When,  as  happened  at  Croton,  the  Pythagorean  brotherhoods 
secured  a  hold  on  the  magistracy  and  the  conduct  of  public  affairs, 
they  worked  in  favor  of  autocratic  government  by  the  initiated,  and 
the  exclusion  of  the  democracy  from  power. 

Croton,  while  under  the  rule  of  the  Pythagoreans,  became 
involved  in  a  war  with  her  wealthy  and  luxurious  neighbors  of 
Sybaris.  The  struggle  was  fought  out  on  a  larger  scale  and 
carried  to  a  more  bitter  end  than  was  usual  in  the  contests  of 
Greek  states.  When  each  town  had  called  in  its  allies  and  armed 
its  native  Italian  subjects,  Sybaris  is  said  to  have  put  three  hundred 
thousand  and  Croton  a  hundred  thousand  men  into  the  field.  The 
numbers  are  no  doubt  exaggerated,  but  they  bear  witness  to  the 
size  and  wealth  of  the  cities  of  Magna  Graecia.  Milo,  the  famous 
athlete,  a  distinguished  follower  of  Pythagoras,  commanded  the  Cro- 
toniate  army  and  triumphed  over  the  enemy,  whose  tyrant,  Telys — 
with  thousands  of  his  followers — was  slain  in  the  battle.  The 
conquered  city  itself  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  victors,  who  granted 
no  terms,  but  expelled  the  whole  of  the  inhabitants,  and  divided  up 
their  land  among  themselves.  The  exiled  Sybarites  wandered  far 
and  wide,  but  the  majority  settled  at  Laiis  and  Scidrus  on  the 
Tyrrhenian  Sea,   old  colonies  of  their  native  town.     The  whole 


216  GREECE 

570-376  B.C. 

Greek  world  was  surprised  and  shocked  at  the  fall  of  so  great  a 
city;  even  the  distant  Milesians  put  on  mourning  when  the  news 
reached  them ;  for  they  had  long  been  bound  to  Sybaris  by  com- 
mercial ties,  and  their  manufacturers  were  wont  to  weave  into  gar- 
ments the  wool  of  the  rich  Sybarite  flockmasters. 

Their  ruthless  treatment  of  the  conquered  city  was  ultimately 
the  cause  of  the  ruin  of  the  Pythagoreans  of  Croton.  The  oligarchs 
divided  up  all  the  Sybarite  territory  among  themselves,  and  refused 
to  grant  allotments  to  the  proletariate.  This  gave  rise  to  a  sedi- 
tion much  resembling  some  of  the  agrarian  troubles  at  Rome.  The 
populace  took  arms  under  a  certain  Cylon,  and  made  an  attack  on 
the  haughty  philosophers.  A  democracy  was  successfully  estab- 
lished, and  the  Pythagorean  brotherhoods  were  subjected  to  such 
a  relentless  persecution  that  after  much  bloodshed  they  were  crushed. 
Similar  but  less  violent  movements  troubled  the  other  Italiot  cities, 
and  resulted  in  the  destruction  of  Pythagoreanism  as  a  political 
power.  As  a  philosophy,  however,  it  long  remained  vigorous  in 
Italy;  as  late  as  376  B.C.  Archytas,  the  great  legislator  of  Taren- 
tum,  is  said  to  have  endeavored  to  embody  Pythagorean  principles 
in  his  system  of  government. 

Like  their  mother-cities  in  Greece,  the  majority  of  the  states 
of  Italy  and  Sicily  passed  under  the  rule  of  a  tyrant  at  some  period 
of  their  existence.  The  most  famous  among  the  earlier  despots 
was  Phalaris  of  Acragas  (circ.  570  b.c),  a  magistrate  who  had 
seized  the  throne  by  means  of  the  numerous  clients  and  public 
servants  whom  his  office  put  at  his  disposal.  He  was  noted  above 
all  his  fellows  in  the  West  or  the  East  for  his  savage  cruelty;  even 
Periander  is  not  credited  with  any  deeds  so  atrocious  as  that  of 
roasting  enemies  alive  within  a  brazen  bull,  which  tradition  ascribes 
to  Phalaris.  This  ruffian  was  overthrown  at  the  end  of  sixteen 
years  by  a  popular  outbreak,  but  Acragas  was  not  thereby  freed 
from  tyrants ;  the  grandsons  of  Telemachus,  the  leader  who  slew 
Phalaris,  are  found  ruling  the  city  as  despots  till  475  B.C. 

Anaxilaiis,  of  the  Italiot  town  of  Rhegium,  was  another  tyrant 
of  great  power  and  resolution.  His  chief  exploit  was  to  seize 
complete  control  over  the  Sicilian  Strait  by  capturing  the  town  of 
Zancle,  which  lay  over  against  him  on  the  other  side  of  the  water 
(493  B.C.).  He  instigated  the  exiled  Samians,  who  fled  from  Asia 
after  the  Ionic  revolt,  to  seize  the  place  by  a  treacherous  and 
piratical  descent.     When  they  had  done  this  he  himself  fell  upon 


ITALY    AND    SICILY  217 

485  B.C. 

them,  and  avenged  the  Zancleans  by  crushing  their  conquerors. 
He  then  settled  up  the  town  with  colonists  of  his  own,  who  changed 
its  name  to  Messene,  in  honor  of  the  Messenian  blood  which  ran 
in  the  veins  of  the  population  of  Rhegium.  Thus  the  great  port 
on  the  Sicilian  shore  of  the  strait  became  a  Dorian  instead  of  an 
Ionian  town. 

But  the  greatest  of  the  despots  of  the  West  were  the  two  sons 
of  Deinomenes,  Gelo  and  Hiero,  tyrants  of  Syracuse.  They  were 
originally  officers  in  the  service  of  Hippokrates,  the  ruler  of  Gela; 
but  when  their  master  was  killed  in  battle,  Gelo,  by  the  aid  of  the 
army,  became  his  successor.  Five  years  after,  the  oligarchic  party 
at  Syracuse — expelled  from  their  city  by  the  populace — called  in 
Gelo  to  help  them.  The  tyrant  restored  them  to  their  homes,  but 
retained  possession  of  Syracuse  for  himself  (485  B.C.).  He  fixed 
his  abode  there,  and  handed  over  Gela  to  be  governed  by  his  brother 
Hiero.  Gelo  was  the  founder  of  the  supremacy  of  Syracuse  in 
Sicily:  before  his  day  it  would  seem  that  both  Acragas  and  Gela 
were  more  important  places.  His  method  of  enlarging  Syracuse 
was  not  unlike  that  of  the  Assyrian  kings  of  old ;  he  took  Camarina, 
and  forced  all  its  inhabitants  to  come  and  dwell  in  his  new  capital. 
Soon  after  he  fell  on  Megara  Hyblaea  and  other  neighboring  places, 
and  after  selling  the  lower  classes  as  slaves — "  for  he  thought  the 
proletariate  a  most  troublesome  companion  to  dwell  with "  ^ — ■ 
transplanted  the  wealthier  citizens  to  Syracuse.  These  accessions 
of  population  may  have  made  that  city  larger  and  richer,  but  they 
paved  the  way  for  countless  troubles  in  the  future;  for,  as  was 
natural,  the  old  and  the  new  inhabitants  were  always  quarreling. 
But  perhaps  Gelo  calculated  that  their  divisions  made  him  strong. 
He  fortified  Syracuse  with  new  walls  and  adorned  it  with  many 
public  edifices.  His  undisputed  sway  extended  over  the  larger 
half  of  Sicily;  only  Messene,  Acragas,  Himera,  and  Selinus  were 
outside  his  power.  Moreover,  he  maintained  an  immense  merce- 
nary army,  the  inevitable  appendage  of  a  tyranny.  So  large  was  it, 
that  when  the  Greeks  sent  to  ask  aid  at  the  time  of  the  invasion  of 
Xerxes,  Gelo  was  able  to  proffer  them  twenty  thousand  hoplites 
and  eight  thousand  horsemen  and  light-troops,  if  only  they  would 
accept  him  as  their  commander-in-chief.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  the  confederates  very  wisely  refused  to  put  themselves  in  the 
hands  of  the  unscrupulous  tyrant. 

1  Herod,  vii.  c.  156. 


218  GREECE 

480-478    B.C. 

The  same  spring  which  witnessed  the  invasion  of  Greece  by 
Xerxes  proved  a  time  of  no  small  danger  for  Gelo.  The  Cartha- 
ginians seem  to  have  been  moved  into  a  fear  for  their  own  pos- 
sessions by  the  growth  of  the  Syraciisan  power.  Moreover,  there 
were  Sicilian  exiles  who,  with  the  true  Greek  recklessness  in  mat- 
ters of  civil  strife,  called  in  the  barbarians  to  aid  them.  It  is  said 
too  that  the  Persian  king  urged  them  on  to  the  attack,  in  order  that 
they  might  prevent  any  aid  from  being  sent  to  Greece  by  the  Italiot 
or  Siceliot  towns.  It  is  at  any  rate  certain  that  the  first  great 
Carthaginian  invasion  of  Sicily  coincides  in  time  with  Thermopy- 
lae and  Salamis.  Hamilcar,  one  of  the  two  "  suffetes,"  or  supreme 
magistrates  of  Carthage,  landed  on  the  north  coast  of  the  island 
with  a  vast  mercenary  army  of  barbarian  troops,  drawn  from  all  the 
tribes  of  the  Western  Mediterranean ;  it  is  said  to  have  amounted 
to  three  hundred  thousand  men.  He  then  laid  siege  to  Himera,  the 
nearest  Greek  city,  and  was  lying  before  it  when  Gelo  attacked  him. 
The  tyrant  had  got  together  all  his  own  forces,  and  was  joined  by 
those  of  Acragas,  whose  ruler  Thero  was  his  close  friend.  With 
about  sixty  thousand  men  in  hand,  he  boldly  fell  upon  the  Car- 
thaginian camp.  The  day  was  bloody  and  the  victory  long  dis- 
puted, but  at  last  Gelo  learned  from  an  intercepted  letter  that 
Hamilcar  was  expecting  a  reinforcement  of  cavalry.  Disguising 
a  body  of  his  own  horsemen,  he  sent  them  round  to  the  back  of 
the  Carthaginian  camp,  and  at  the  critical  moment  these  supposed 
friends  charged  the  rear  of  Hamilcar's  men  and  threw  them  into 
confusion.  This  settled  the  fight;  the  Carthaginian  suffete  fell, 
his  army  was  scattered,  and  its  loss  in  slain  and  prisoners  was  so 
great  that  it  was  practically  annihilated.  The  victory  was  soon 
followed  by  a  peace,  and  it  w^as  seventy  years  before  another  army 
from  Africa  dared  to  make  a  descent  on  the  shores  of  .Sicily. 

While  the  laurels  which  he  had  earned  by  saving  the  Greeks 
of  the  West  from  the  barbarian  were  still  fresh,  Gelo  died  of  a 
dropsical  complaint,  and  left  his  throne  and  his  army  to  his  brother 
Hiero  (478  B.C.).  That  prince  was  not  less  powerful  or  less  able 
than  his  predecessor.  The  chief  event  of  his  reign  was  the  defeat 
which  he  inflicted  on  the  barbarian  power  wdiich  stood  to  the 
Greeks  of  Italy  in  much  the  same  relation  that  Carthage  did  to  the 
Greeks  of  Sicily.  The  Etruscans  had  long  resented  the  attempts 
of  Hellenic  merchants  and  settlers  to  establish  themselves  in  the 
northern  half  of  the  Tyrrhenian  Sea.     Half  a  century  before  they 


ITALY    AND    SICILY  219 

478-468  B.C. 

had  succeeded,  after  a  desperate  struggle,  in  preventing  the  exiled 
Phocaeans  of  Asia  Minor  from  establishing  themselves  in  Corsica 
(540  B.C.).  Nov^  they  themselves  took  the  offensive,  and  collect- 
ing a  considerable  fleet  laid  siege  to  Cumae,  the  northernmost  of 
the  Italiot  cities.  The  Cumaeans  sent  for  aid  to  Hiero,  who  came 
up  in  haste  with  a  powerful  squadron,  and  completely  defeated  the 
Etruscans  (474  b.c).  Chance  has  preserved,  among  the  few  relics 
of  the  fifth  century  which  have  come  down  to  us,  one  of  the  original 
Etruscan  helmets  which  the  victor  offered  up  to  Apollo  at  Delphi, 
with  its  dedicatory  inscription  still  legible. 

In  Sicily  Hiero  extended  the  dominion  which  his  brother  had 
left  him.  He  quarreled  with  Thrasydaeus,  son  of  Thero  of  Acra- 
gas,  and  succeeded  in  expelling  that  tyrant  and  annexing  his 
dominions.  This  conquest  made  him  master  of  all  Sicily  except 
the  extreme  west  and  northeast  of  the  island.  Hiero  resolved  to 
make  himself  a  name  by  establishing  a  new  city,  and  set  to  work 
much  in  the  same  way  as  his  brother  had  done  in  peopling  Syra- 
cuse. He  compelled  the  inhabitants  of  the  Ionic  city  of  Catana 
to  remove  to  Leontmi,  and  fixed  on  their  deserted  city  as  the  place 
for  his  new  foundation.  On  its  site,  which  he  renamed  Aetna 
after  the  mountain  which  overlooked  it,  he  settled  ten  thousand 
colonists,  mostly  chosen  from  the  ranks  of  his  mercenaries.  So 
pleased  was  he  with  this  achievement  that  when  his  chariot  chanced 
to  be  victorious  at  the  Olympic  games,  he  ordered  the  heralds  to 
proclaim  his  name  as  "  Hiero  the  Aetnaean  "  rather  than  "  the 
Syracusan." 

After  a  prosperous  reign  of  ten  years,  Hiero  died  (468  B.C.). 
His  death  was  the  signal  for  the  wildest  internal  commotions  at 
Syracuse.  The  throne  was  disputed  between  his  brother  Thrasy- 
bulus,  and  his  nephew,  the  son  of  Gelo.  This  quarrel  gave  the 
Syracusans  an  opportunity  of  coming  by  their  own.  After  a 
stormy  period,  in  which  the  old  citizens  and  the  mercenaries  of 
Hiero  settled  all  their  outstanding  grudges  with  the  sword,  the 
party  of  the  tyrants  had  the  worst  of  the  game.  Thrasybulus  was 
besieged  in  Ortygia,  the  island-citadel  of  Syracuse,  and  at  last  com- 
pelled to  surrender  it,  and  to  retire  under  a  capitulation  to  Italy. 
His  departure,  however,  was  far  from  making  an  end  of  the  civil 
broils.  The  rights  of  the  original  inhabitants  of  the  city,  of  the 
Camarinaeans  and  others  whom  Gelo  had  forced  to  dwell  there,  of 
the  strangers  from  all  parts  of  Greece  who  had  been  invited  over 


220 


GREECE 


478-465  B.C. 

by  the  tyrants,  and  of  the  numerous  exiles  who  returned  to  reclaim 
their  property,  were  so  hopelessly  at  variance  that  no  peaceful  agree- 
ment could  be  made  between  them.  Seditions  were  equally  rife  in 
the  other  towns  of  Sicily;  when  the  strong  hand  of  Hiero  was 
removed,  the  faction  which  had  supported  and  that  which  had 
opposed  the  tyrants  promptly  fell  to  blows.  It  was  not  till  several 
years  of  desperate  sedition  and  civil  war  had  elapsed  that  the  Sice- 


\Megara  \' 

pyracuse  '^ 


CREEK  COLONIES  IN  SICILY  AND  fTALY 

SOO-465   &C 


liots  arrived  at  a  modus  vivcndi.  It  was  the  democratic  faction 
which  conquered ;  they  celebrated  their  triumph  by  giving  back  to 
each  city  its  complete  autonomy,  and  by  restoring  all  the  exiles 
who  had  been  driven  out  by  the  sons  of  Deinomenes.  The  sur- 
vivors of  the  mercenaries  of  Hiero  were  allowed  to  settle  down  at 
Messene  alone.  Catana  was  reconquered  by  its  old  inhabitants, 
and  resumed  its  former  name.     Camarina  also  rose  from  the  dust, 


ITALY     AND     SICILY  221 

478-465  B.C. 

and  everywhere  an  endeavor  was  made  to  restore  the  old  state  of 
things  which  had  existed  before  the  rise  of  the  tyrants.  The  next 
forty  years  formed  the  most  flourishing  period  in  the  whole  of  the 
history  of  Sicily.  The  troubles  which  the  islanders  had  undergone 
seem  to  have  aroused  them  to  the  same  energy  which  the  Persian 
wars  had  kindled  in  their  brethren  of  Greece  Proper.  Their  prog- 
ress in  wealth  and  prosperity  was  astonishing:  that  side  of  culture 
which  displays  itself  in  art  was  especially  rapid  in  development;  in 
the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  the  Siceliots  were  decidedly  ahead 
of  their  contemporaries  in  the  older  Hellenic  lands.  It  was  not 
till  the  influence  of  Pheidias  was  felt  in  Greece  that  art  in  the 
mother-country  attained  to  the  level  of  art  in  the  colonies.  In 
political  matters  the  Siceliots  remained  consistently  attached  to 
democracy,  until  a  series  of  disasters  at  the  end  of  the  century 
drove  them  to  take  refuge  once  more  under  the  strong  hand  of  a 
despot.  But  for  sixty  years  they  flourished  beneath  the  democratic 
form  of  government  which  was  best  suited  to  cities  that  possessed 
such  a  mixed  body  of  inhabitants. 

The  Greeks  of  Italy  had  never  fallen  so  wholly  into  the  power 
of  tyrants  as  had  their  Siceliot  brethren.  The  few  towns,  such  as 
Rhegium,  which  were  despotically  governed  seem  to  have  freed 
themselves  about  the  same  time  that  the  despots  of  Sicily  were 
expelled.  The  chief  event  in  Italiot  history  which  marked  this 
period  was  the  first  check  which  the  Greeks  suffered  at  the  hands  of 
the  peoples  of  the  interior.  In  473  b.  c,  the  next  year  after  the 
defeat  of  the  Etruscans  at  Cumae,  the  Tarentines  and  Rhegines 
allied  themselves  to  make  an  attack  on  the  powerful  tribe  of  the 
lapygians,  in  hope  of  extending  the  area  of  Greek  colonization. 
But  they  suffered  a  most  disastrous  repulse,  and  the  greater  part 
of  their  army  was  cut  to  pieces.  "  Never  in  my  day,"  wrote  Herod- 
otus, "  was  there  such  a  terrible  slaughter  of  Hellenes ;  three  thou- 
sand of  the  Rhegines  alone  fell  and  the  loss  of  the  Tarentines  was 
even  greater."  This  defeat  was  but  the  first  intimation  of  greater 
disasters  to  come,  when  two  generations  later  the  Sabellian  tribes 
were  to  set  themselves  to  cut  short  the  borders  of  the  states  of 
Magna  Graecia.  But  for  the  present  the  Italiot  cities  shared  alike 
in  the  rapid  development  and  the  democratic  tendencies  of  their 
Siceliot  neighbors. 


Chapter  XXII 

EVENTS  IN  ASIA  MINOR  AND  GREECE,  479-460  B.C. 

AFTER  the  battle  of  Mycalethe  Peloponnesian  admirals 
/-\  considered  that  enough  had  been  done  in  disabhng  the 
■^  -M.  Persians  from  further  naval  operations  in  the  Aegean. 
This  was  not,  however,  the  opinion  of  Xanthippus  and  the  Athe- 
nians; strengthening  themselves  with  ships  from  the  revolted  Ionian 
cities,  they  sailed  north,  and  began  to  attack  the  Persian  garrisons 
along  the  Hellespont.  They  found  the  famous  bridge  completely 
destroyed  by  storms,  but  the  towns  in  its  neighborhood  were  still 
so  firmly  held  by  the  Persians  that  the  inhabitants  had  not  dared  to 
rise.  Sestos  was  the  place  which  gave  the  Athenians  most  trouble ; 
they  lay  before  it  all  the  autumn,  and  did  not  take  it  until  the 
famishing  garrison  slipped  out  by  night  into  the  Thracian  hills, 
there  to  be  cut  to  pieces  by  the  natives.  Only  Artayctes,  the  gov- 
ernor of  the  district,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  besiegers;  him, 
contrary  to  Greek  custom,  they  put  to  death  by  crucifixion,  to 
avenge  a  wanton  pollution  of  the  temple  of  Protesilaiis,  of  which 
he  had  been  guilty.  After  this  the  Athenians  sailed  home,  and 
their  allies  dispersed. 

Such  was  the  panic  which  the  result  of  Plataea  and  Mycale 
had  cast  on  the  soul  of  Xerxes,  that  the  Great  King  made  no  further 
endeavor  to  sustain  the  numerous  outlying  garrisons  which  still 
held  for  him  the  cities  of  the  Thracian  coast  and  other  distant  pos- 
sessions. Nevertheless  the  Persian  power  had  been  so  firmly 
rooted  beyond  the  Hellespont  that  it  did  not  fall  at  once.  Several 
years  of  war  were  necessary  to  reduce  these  strongholds.  In  478 
B.C.  the  Peloponnesians  fitted  out  a  small  fleet  of  twenty  ships, 
which  was  joined  by  thirty  more  from  Athens.  They  were  placed 
under  Pausanias,  regent  of  Sparta,  the  victorious  commander  at 
Plataea;  while  the  Athenian  squadron  was  headed  by  Aristeides 
and  by  Cimon,  the  young  son  of  the  great  Miltiades.  After  sail- 
ing into  the  Levant  and  assisting  the  Greek  cities  of  Cyprus  to 
revolt,  Pausanias  turned  north  and  laid  siege  to  Byzantium,  the 

22-2 


INASIA    MINOR  223 

478  B.C. 

most  important  of  the  Persian  fortresses  in  Thrace.  It  held  out 
as  obstinately  as  Sestos  in  the  previous  year;  but  later  in  the 
autumn  the  governor,  a  kinsman  of  Xerxes,  surrendered.  The 
fleet  was  therefore  able  to  winter  at  the  town. 

Pausanias  was  a  man  of  more  ambition  than  ability;  the 
honors  and  wealth  which  had  fallen  to  him  on  account  of  his  share 
in  the  triumph  of  Plataea  had  completely  turned  his  head.  He 
took  the  whole  credit  of  the  battle  to  himself,  and  dedicated  in  his 
own  name,  and  not  in  that  of  the  confederates,  the  tripod  which  was 
set  up  at  Delphi  as  a  memorial  of  the  victory.  While  in  Sparta  he 
had  openly  showed  his  dislike  for  the  frugal  and  irksome  manner 
of  life  which  was  there  imposed  upon  him,  and  when  once  he  was 
away  from  home  his  luxury,  haughtiness,  and  reckless  violence 
became  unbearable.  But,  ill  regulated  though  his  ambition  might 
be,  it  was  not  at  first  suspected  that  it  would  spur  him  on  to  high 
treason  against  Greece.  Such,  however,  was  its  effect;  after  tak- 
ing Byzantium  he  secretly  released  some  of  the  prisoners,  and 
charged  them  with  letters  to  the  Persian  king,  in  which  he  offered 
to  subdue  Greece  and  to  do  homage  for  it  as  the  vassal  of  Xerxes, 
if  only  he  were  supplied  with  sufficient  means  and  granted  the 
king's  daughter  as  his  wife.  It  was  his  aim,  in  short,  to  become 
tyrant  of  all  Greece,  and  he  was  ready  to  purchase  his  opportunity 
by  becoming  the  servant  of  the  barbarian  whose  armies  he  had 
routed. 

Xerxes  was  far  from  estimating  the  presumptuous  regent  at 
his  right  value,  and  showed  himself  delighted  with  his  overtures. 
He  placed  his  resources  at  the  Spartan's  disposal,  and  bade  him 
"  work  on  night  and  day  to  accomplish  his  purpose,  without  letting 
himself  be  held  back  by  lack  of  gold  or  silver,  or  want  of  troops, 
for  all  should  be  at  his  command."  If  Pausanias  could  have  kept 
cool,  he  might  have  become  really  dangerous  to  Greece,  but  when 
once  he  had  the  king's  letters  before  him  his  conduct  grew  so  out- 
rageous that  his  designs  began  to  be  suspected.  Not  only  did  he 
effect  royal  state  and  surround  himself  with  numbers  of  foreign 
mercenaries,  but  his  bearing  towards  the  allies  assumed  such  an 
arbitrary  and  dictatorial  cast  that  no  Oriental  despot  could  have 
been  more  offensive.  Ere  long  reports  of  his  behavior  reached 
Sparta,  and  provoked  the  ephors  into  issuing  a  warrant  for  his 
recall,  and  appointing  a  certain  Dorcis  admiral  in  his  stead. 

Before  Dorcis  could  reach  Byzantium,  matters  had  come  to  a 


224  GREECE 

478  B.C. 

head ;  the  fleet  had  refused  to  obey  its  commander,  and  placed  itself 
at  the  disposition  of  the  Athenian  leaders,  Aristeides  and  Cimon. 
One  morning,  we  are  told,  a  Samian  captain  gave  the  signal  for 
revolt,  by  rowing  up  to  the  regent's  galley  and  running  into  it  in 
a  deliberate  and  malicious  manner.  Pausanias  was  driven  to  fury, 
when  his  angry  rebukes  were  met  by  the  reply  that  "  he  had  better 
go  home,  and  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  memory  of  Plataea  he 
would  have  been  punished  as  he  deserved."  He  could  do  nothing 
to  revenge  himself;  the  Peloponnesian  ships  in  the  fleet  were  few, 
and  those  of  the  Athenians  and  the  revolted  Greeks  of  Asia  out- 
numbered them  threefold.  The  would-be  tyrant  found  himself 
stripped  of  his  power,  and  summoned  home  to  take  his  trial  for 
treason  at  Sparta.  His  successor's  orders  were  quietly  disregarded 
by  the  fleet,  which  acknowledged  Aristeides  alone  as  admiral. 

The  mad  conduct  of  Pausanias  had  precipitated  a  change 
which  was  inevitable;  it  was  obvious  that  Sparta  could  not  any 
longer  pretend  to  the  direction  of  the  confederate  fleet.  Her 
contingent  did  not  amount  to  a  tithe  of  its  force,  and  was  in  no  way 
distinguished  for  conduct  or  seamanship.  Her  admirals  had  nearly 
wrecked  the  cause  of  Greece  at  Artemisium  and  Salamis.  The 
Athenians,  as  we  shall  soon  see,  owed  her  no  gratitude ;  the  Greeks 
of  Asia  were  lonians  who  preferred  to  follow  their  kinsmen  of 
Athens  rather  than  a  Dorian  from  Sparta.  Moreover,  Aristeides 
and  Cimon  were  personally  the  models  of  everything  that  Pau- 
sanias was  not ;  the  inflexible  honesty  of  purpose  of  the  one,  and  the 
gallantry  and  generosity  of  the  other,  won  every  heart,  and  made 
the  transference  of  power  as  popular  as  it  was  necessary. 

While  the  siege  of  Byzantium  was  in  progress,  a  very  danger- 
ous crisis  in  the  home  politics  of  Greece  had  been  tided  over. 
When  the  winter  which  followed  Plataea  and  Mycale  had  passed, 
the  Athenians  set  themselves  to  rebuild  their  twice-ruined  city. 
They  included  in  the  new  circuit  much  ground  which  had  formerly 
been  outside  the  walls,  and  planned  for  its  defense  a  far  more 
formidable  line  of  fortifications  than  had  existed  before.  The 
energy  which  they  displayed  in  this  work  roused  an  unworthy 
jealousy  in  the  hearts  of  their  neighbors.  Several  states,  headed 
by  Aegina,  sent  private  information  to  Sparta,  to  the  effect  that 
Athens  was  making  herself  dangerously  strong,  and  urged  the 
ephors  to  endeavor  to  arrest  the  work.  The  Spartans  were  already 
growing  alarmed  at  the  power  and  resolution  which  Athens  had 


INASIAMINOR  225 

478  B.C. 

displayed  in  the  late  war;  their  timid  and  conservative  policy  was 
sure  to  come  into  collision  sooner  or  later  with  the  designs  of  the 
active  and  restless  naval  state.  Accordingly  they  listened  with 
attention  to  the  complaints  of  their  allies,  and  determined  to  inter- 
fere. For  very  shame  they  could  not  venture  absolutely  to  forbid 
the  fortification  of  Athens,  but  they  sent  an  embassy  to  urge  that 
the  work  was  both  unnecessary  and  inexpedient.  In  the  event  of 
another  Persian  invasion  they  asserted  that  the  possession  of  a 
strongly  walled  city,  just  outside  Peloponnesus,  would  give  the 
enemy  a  dangerous  base  of  operations,  and  they  offered  to  receive 
the  Athenians  within  the  Isthmus  and  give  them  safe  harborage 
there,  if  ever  they  were  again  compelled  to  evacuate  Attica.  The 
plea  was  futile  and  obviously  insincere,  but  the  Athenians  were  for 
the  moment  in  too  hazardous  a  position  to  return  a  bold  refusal. 
Their  walls  were  but  half-built,  and  showed  gaps  and  breaches 
everywhere. 

The  crisis  was  one  at  which  the  subtle  genius  of  Themistocles 
was  able  to  display  itself  in  all  its  power.  By  his  advice  the 
Athenian  assembly  returned  answer  that  an  embassy  should  at  once 
be  sent  to  Sparta  to  discuss  the  matter.  Themistocles  was  given 
two  colleagues  and  entrusted  with  the  affair;  he  himself  went  off  at 
once,  and  notified  his  mission  to  the  ephors,  but  his  companions,  by 
previous  arrangement,  were  long  in  making  their  appearance.  Until 
they  arrived  Themistocles  professed  himself  unable  to  commence  the 
negotiations.  Meanwhile  the  whole  population  of  Attica,  men, 
women,  and  chilren,  were  working  day  and  night  to  complete  the 
w^all.  Abundant  material  was  at  hand  in  the  ruins  of  the  old  city, 
and  the  fortifications  rose  at  an  incredible  rate ;  ever  after  the  haste 
of  the  builders  could  be  discerned  from  the  roughness  of  their  con- 
struction; tombstones,  temple-columns,  and  wrought  blocks  of  all 
kinds  may  still  be  seen  built  up  in  the  courses  of  the  wall.  By  the 
time  that  the  two  belated  ambassadors  reached  Sparta,  Athens  was 
already  getting  into  a  state  of  defense.  Meanwhile  rumors  of  this 
activity  began  to  reach  the  ephors;  but  Themistocles  succeeded  in 
keeping  them  quiet  by  asserting  with  the  utmost  confidence  that 
nothing  was  being  done  at  Athens.  He  even  induced  the  Spartans 
to  send  commissioners  to  obtain  confirmation  with  their  own  eyes 
as  to  the  suspension  of  the  work;  when  these  envoys  arrived  in 
Athens  they  were  treated  with  courtesy,  but  detained  to  serve  as 
hostages  for  the  personal  safety  of  Themistocles  and  his  colleagues. 


S26  GREECE 

478  B.Cc 

At  last  several  months  had  been  wasted,  and  the  walls  were  suffi- 
ciently strong  to  withstand  a  siege;  Themistocles  then  changed  his 
tone,  boldly  avowed  his  stratagem,  and  proclaimed  the  fortifications 
of  Athens  as  an  accomplished  fact.  The  Spartans  were  bitterly 
vexed  at  the  trick,  but  the  time  for  action  had  now  gone  by,  and 
they  were  compelled  to  accept  the  inevitable,  and  leave  Athens  to 
herself.  This  incident,  combined  with  the  mutiny  against  Pau- 
sanias,  sufficed  to  complete  the  estrangement  of  the  two  powers 
which  had  conquered  the  Persian. 

When  the  walls  of  the  old  city  of  Athens  were  finished,  Themis- 
tocles prevailed  on  his  countrymen  to  enlarge  their  system  of  forti- 
fications. Such  was  his  influence  with  the  Ecclesia  that  he  obtained 
a  vote  which  sanctioned  the  erection  of  another  line  of  walls  around 
Peiraeus  and  the  neighboring  harbor  of  Munychia.  This  work  was 
even  more  laborious  and  expensive  than  that  which  had  just  been 
completed.  The  ramparts  were  built  to  a  thickness  of  fourteen  or 
fifteen  feet,  and  not  lined  with  rubble,  as  was  usual  in  Greek  fortifi- 
cations, but  composed  of  hewn  stone  throughout ;  they  were  by  far 
the  strongest  piece  of  military  architecture  which  Greece  had  yet 
seen.  In  the  splendid  harbors  which  they  protected,  ships  might 
ride  by  the  hundred,  while  the  ample  open  spaces  which  lay  within 
them  were  large  enough  to  sen-e  as  a  refuge  for  a  great  part  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Attica.  Ere  long  the  population  of  Peiraeus 
began  to  increase  at  a  much  more  rapid  rate  than  that  of  the  old  city ; 
it  was  always  the  chosen  abode  of  the  mercantile  and  seafaring 
classes,  and  now  became  the  chief  haunt  of  the  numerous  Metics 
(or  resident  aliens)  who  were  drawn  to  Attica  by  the  commercial 
advantages  to  be  found  there.  Indeed,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 
sentimental  patriotism  which  clung  to  the  time-honored  rock  of 
the  Acropolis,  Peiraeus  rather  than  Athens  might  have  become  the 
capital  of  the  land. 

The  transference  to  Athenian  hands  of  the  control  over  the  con- 
federate fleet  at  Byzantium  was  destined  to  have  the  most  mo- 
mentous consequences.  The  stress  of  circumstances  combined  with 
the  ability  of  the  Athenian  leaders  to  turn  the  unexpected  situa- 
tion of  the  moment  into  a  permanent  settlement.  Asiatic  Greece 
was  but  half  liberated,  and  the  Athenians  and  their  Ionian  kinsmen 
were  set  upon  completing  the  work.  Now  that  the  Peloponncsians 
had  withdrawn  from  the  enterprise,  there  was  no  third  party  present 
to  prevent  them  from  coming  to  an  agreement.     Accordingly  it  was 


INASIAMINOR  227 

477  B.C. 

but  natural  that  Aristeides,  as  representing  Athens,  should  conclude 
conventions  with  the  Ionian  states  for  the  regulation  of  the  future 
conduct  of  the  war.  On  these  compacts,  freely  and  voluntarily 
entered  into  by  both  parties,  the  future  empire  of  x\thens  Was  to  be 
built. 

The  chief  clauses  of  the  treaties  which  were  now  ratified  pro- 
vided that  the  several  states  should  furnish  ships  or  money  for  the 
further  prosecution  of  the  war  with  Persia,  and  should  not  with- 
draw from  the  alliance  without  the  consent  of  the  whole  body  of 
confederates.  The  probity  of  Aristeides  was  so  universally  recog- 
nized that  he  was  allowed  to  assess  the  liabilities  of  the  various 
cities  at  his  own  discretion.  We  read  that  he  fixed  the  sum  required 
for  the  prosecution  of  the  war  at  four  hundred  and  sixty  talents  per 
annum,  partly  payable  in  ships,  partly  in  money.  The  amount 
appears  considerable,  but  when  it  is  remembered  that,  besides  the 
Ionian  and  Aeolian  towns,  all  the  islands  of  the  Cyclades,  the  colo- 
nies of  Chalcidice,  and  the  liberated  states  along  both  shores  of  the 
Hellespont  were  enrolled  as  contributors,  it  ceases  to  appear  exces- 
sive. Subsequent  experience  showed  that  it  could  be  largely  in- 
creased without  becoming  unbearable.  The  westernmost  of  the 
confederates  were  the  cities  of  Euboea,  the  most  easterly  the  Byzan- 
tines ;  but  the  list  of  members  was  ere  long  to  be  largely  increased. 
It  was  agreed  that  the  common  treasury  of  the  league  should  be 
placed  in  the  sacred  island  of  Delos,  and  that  delegates  from  every 
state  should  annually  repair  to  the  same  spot  to  discuss  the  needs 
of  the  war.  The  execution  of  the  decrees  of  this  synod  was  placed 
in  the  hands  of  the  Athenians,  who  were  also  charged  with  the 
appointment  of  the  officers,  afterwards  called  Hellenotamiae,  by 
whom  the  funds  of  the  league  v/ere  to  be  collected.  In  their  behalf 
tax-gatherers  sailed  around  the  Aegean  every  spring,  and  gathered 
in  all  contributions,  from  the  few  drachmae  at  which  Ceria  or 
Anaphe  were  assessed,  to  the  numerous  talents  owed  by  Miletus  or 
Abdera. 

The  Confederacy  of  Delos,  as  this  league  came  to  be  styled,  was 
in  its  origin  purely  military;  the  sole  end  which  it  proposed  to  itself 
was  the  expulsion  of  the  Persian  from  the  various  outlying  strong- 
holds in  which  he  was  still  established.  In  this  design  it  had  no  small 
success.  Its  first  triumphs  were  won  over  the  garrisons  which  held 
the  towns  of  the  Thracian  coast;  but  of  the  operations  which  dis- 
lodged them  only  one  has  left  a  mark  in  history.     This  was  the  siege 


228  GREECE 

468  B.C. 

of  Eion,  the  fortress  at  the  mouth  of  the  Strymon,  by  the  Athenians 
under  Cimon.  Boges,  the  Persian  governor,  made  a  resistance  which 
surpassed  in  obstinacy  any  that  the  Greeks  had  yet  known.  When 
his  provisions  at  last  gave  out,  he  gathered  his  family  and  his  treas- 
ures on  a  great  funeral  pyre  and  burned  himself  alive,  like  the  leg- 
endary Sardanapalus.  In  the  course  of  nine  or  ten  years  of  war  the 
Athenians  and  their  confederates  succeeded  in  completely  expelling 
the  Persian  from  Europe,  and  in  restricting  his  dominion  in 
Western  Asia  Minor  to  the  inland  parts.  The  whole  coast-line, 
except  a  small  tract  between  the  Troad  and  the  northernmost  towns 
of  Aeolis,  was  liberated ;  and  its  towns,  without  exception,  enrolled 
themselves  in  the  confederacy  of  Delos.  As  these  new  members 
came  in,  the  payments  of  the  original  confederates  were  probably 
reduced,  so  that  nothing  more  than  the  necessary  four  hundred 
and  sixty  talents  might  be  raised.  Athens  had  not  yet  contem- 
plated turning  her  predominance  into  an  empire,  and  was  still 
anxious  to  show  that  her  activity  was  disinterested. 

While  the  Confederacy  of  Delos  was  gaining  strength  beyond 
the  Aegean,  the  course  of  politics  in  European  Greece  was  compara- 
tively uneventful.  At  Sparta  Pausanias  had  been  tried  for  treason 
after  his  return  from  Byzantium,  but  either  because  of  the  caution 
with  which  he  had  conducted  his  traitorous  correspondence,  or 
because  the  ephors  did  not  wish  to  push  matters  to  extremity,  he 
was  acquitted.  Nevertheless  he  was  a  marked  man,  and  was  never 
again  entrusted  with  a  command.  Yet  though  reduced  to  the  con- 
dition of  a  private  individual,  he  did  not  desist  from  his  intrigues 
with  Xerxes.  He  sailed  back  to  the  East,  and  once  more  placed 
himself  in  secret  connection  with  the  satraps  of  Asia  Minor.  The 
wealth  which  he  had  at  his  disposal  and  the  eternal  factions  which 
divided  the  Greek  cities  still  gave  him  some  hopes  of  success.  At 
Byzantium  he  gained  such  an  ascendency  that  the  Athenians  were 
obliged  to  interfere,  and  to  expel  him  by  force.  He  then  established 
himself  in  the  Troad,  and  continued  his  schemes  with  such  vigor 
that  the  Spartan  government  at  last  summoned  him  back  to  stand 
another  trial.  He  had  the  assurance  to  accept  the  challenge,  and 
when  he  arrived  at  home  no  accuser  had  the  courage  to  appear 
against  him.  He  therefore  remained  at  large,  though  shunned  and 
suspected  by  his  fellow-citizens.  This  social  ostracism  drove  him 
to  plan  a  more  violent  revenge ;  he  commenced  to  intrigue  with  the 
Helots,  and  set  on  foot  a  scheme  for  a  general  insurrection  of  the 


INASIA    MINOR  229 

469  B.C. 

serfs  of  Laconia  and  the  massacre  of  the  Dorian  oligarchy.  The 
Helots  were  always  ready  to  revolt  when  a  leader  presented  himself, 
and  Pausanias  found  them  ready  to  follow  him.  Although  the 
ephors  obtained  some  hints  as  to  his  designs,  they  could  obtain  no 
convincing  evidence  till  chance  placed  it  in  their  hands. 

Pausanias  had  a  confidential  slave,  who  was  acquainted  with 
all  his  secrets ;  one  day  his  master  entrusted  him  with  a  letter  directed 
to  the  satrap  Artabazus.  The  slave  had  observed  that,  of  all  the 
messengers  who  were  sent  to  Asia,  none  ever  returned.  This  in- 
duced him  to  tamper  with  the  letter;  he  opened  it,  and  found  in  a 
postscript  a  request  that  the  bearer  might  be  put  to  death.  This 
discovery  naturally  induced  him  to  lay  the  whole  matter  before  the 
Spartan  government.  In  order  that  they  might  have  clear  evidence 
against  the  traitor,  the  ephors  laid  a  trap  for  him.  They  directed 
the  slave  to  take  sanctuary  at  Taenarum,  and  arranged  a  hiding-place 
for  two  of  their  num.ber  within  earshot  of  his  refuge.  Pausanias 
hastened  to  the  spot  to  remonstrate  with  his  messenger,  and  the 
concealed  ephors  were  able  to  gather  from  his  conversation  ample 
proof  of  his  guilt.  When  he  returned  to  Sparta  orders  were  issued 
for  his  arrest,  and  the  officers  set  out  to  seize  him.  Pausanias  was 
passing  by  a  temple  of  Athena  when  he  saw  the  ephors  and  their 
followers  approaching  him ;  his  guilty  conscience  gave  him  suffi- 
cient warning,  and  he  rushed  into  the  temple  and  took  sanctuary. 
Instead  of  tearing  him  from  the  altar,  the  ephors  ordered  the  doors 
to  be  built  up,  and  left  the  ex-regent  to  die  of  starvation.  It  is 
said  that  his  own  mother  was  the  first  to  approach  and  aid  the 
magistrates  in  the  work.  When,  after  some  days,  Pausanias  was 
drawing  near  his  last  gasp,  the  ephors  had  the  temple  opened,  and 
took  the  dying  man  outside,  that  the  holy  place  might  not  be 
polluted  by  his  death.  Thus  perished  the  conqueror  of  Plataea,  the 
victim  of  his  own  insane  pride  and  ambition  (469  B.C.). 

The  fall  of  Pausanias  brought  about  the  disgrace  of  a  man  of 
much  greater  genius,  one  who  had  done  ten  times  more  service  for 
Greece  than  the  vainglorious  regent.  For  the  last  few  years 
Themistocles  had  been  steadily  declining  in  popularity  at  Athens. 
His  unscrupulous  talents  were  better  suited  to  troublous  times  than 
to  the  less  eventful  days  which  had  now  arrived,  and  his  gross  faults 
were  more  easily  discerned  when  no  crisis  was  at  hand  to  distract  the 
attention  of  his  fellow-citizens.  The  fact  that  his  political  schemes 
never  showed  the  least  respect  for  honesty  or  good  faith  might  not 


230  GREECE 

471   B.C. 

entirely  have  alienated  the  people.  But  his  open  corruption  could 
not  be  palliated ;  it  was  well  known  to  everyone  that  he  took 
bribes  from  all  quarters  on  all  possible  occasions.  A  characteristic 
story  relates  that  while  Themistbcles  was  debating-  in  public  with 
Aristeides,  he  observed  in  a  self-laudatory  manner  "  that  the  chief 
excellence  of  a  statesman  was  to  be  able  to  foresee  and  frustrate 
the  designs  of  public  enemies,"  to  which  Aristeides  rejoined  "  that 
another  very  excellent  and  necessary  quality  in  a  statesman  was  to 
have  clean  hands."  The  retort  was  considered  crushing.  It  was 
indeed  unfortunate  for  Themistocles  that  he  was  continually  being 
contrasted  with  Aristeides,  a  man  who  as  much  exceeded  the 
average  Greek  standard  of  probity  as  he  himself  fell  below  it. 
Moreover  he  had  the  bad  taste  to  be  continually  reminding  the 
Athenians  of  the  services  he  had  done  them — the  worst  way  to  keep 
the  favor  of  the  multitude,  for  repetition  sickens  the  hearer.^ 

It  is  also  probable  that  the  influence  of  Themistocles  was 
weakened  by  the  fact  that  his  political  antagonists  no  longer  showed 
themselves  such  foes  to  democratic  reforms  in  the  constitution  as 
they  had  been  before  the  Persian  war.  The  result  of  Salamis  had 
convinced  even  the  most  conservative  statesmen  that  the  future 
career  of  Athens  was  to  be  found  on  the  sea,  and  that  her  true 
strength  lay  in  the  arms  of  her  sailors.  Nothing  marks  this  change 
of  opinion  better  than  the  fact  that  it  was  Aristeides,  the  old  op- 
ponent of  naval  expansion,  who  founded  the  Confederacy  of  Delos. 
He  is  also  said  in  his  later  years  to  have  advised  the  concentration 
of  the  whole  population  of  Attica  in  Athens,  a  step  which  he  would 
have  opposed  fifteen  years  earlier. 

About  the  year  471  b.c.^  the  strife  of  political  parties  became  so 
keen  that  recourse  was  once  more  had  to  ostracism,  the  expedient 
which  had  been  fatal  to  Aristeides  twelve  years  before.  But  this 
time  it  was  Themistocles  who  was  its  victim ;  he  was  sent  into  hon- 
orary banishment,  and  took  up  his  abode  at  Argos.  While  he  was 
staying  there,  Pausanias,  then  deep  in  his  treasonable  schemes, 
sounded  him  as  to  his  willingness  to  join  in  the  plot  against  the 
liberties  of  Greece.  With  more  firmness  than  might  have  been 
expected  of  him,  Themistocles  refused  to  take  part  in  the  intrigue, 
but  he  did  not  reveal  the  plans  of  Pausanias  to  anyone.  When  the 
ephors  seized  the  traitor's  papers  after  his  death,  they  found  traces 

1  The  story  in  tlie  IloXirtia  zmv  Ad-Qvaiujv  about  Themistocles's  intrigues 
against  the  Areopagus  in  463  is  impossible;    he  was  in  exile  long  before. 


IN    ASIA    MINOR  231 

4C8-460  B.C. 

of  this  correspondence  with  Themistocles,  though  there  was  nothing 
which  actually  proved  the  Athenian's  implication  in  the  plot.  How- 
ever, his  countrymen  showed  an  intention  of  bringing  the  exiled 
statesman  to  trial,  and  sent  to  fetch  him  from  Argos.  Themistocles 
resolved  to  fly  rather  than  to  face  his  political  opponents ;  he  reached 
Corcyra,  but  such  a  hue-and-cry  after  him  was  raised  throughout 
Greece  that  he  could  find  no  safe  refuge,  and,  after  a  series  of  hair- 
breadth escapes,  which  lasted  for  more  than  two  years,  was  com- 
pelled to  take  refuge  in  Asia,  on  Persian  ground  (466  B.C.). 

All  chance  of  an  honorable  career  in  Athens  was  now  gone 
from  Themistocles.  In  sheer  disgust  he  turned  to  his  old  enemies, 
and  craved  the  protection  of  the  Great  King.  Xerxes  was  just 
dead,  slain  by  a  domestic  conspiracy,  and  it  was  to  his  young  son 
Artaxerxes  that  the  exile  made  his  petition.  The  name  of  Themis- 
tocles was  so  dreaded  at  Susa  that  his  offers  of  service  produced  all 
the  effect  he  could  have  desired.  It  is  even  said  that  Artaxerxes 
was  so  affected  with  joy  that  he  was  heard  at  night  to  cry  thrice  in 
his  dreams,  *'  Themistocles  the  Athenian  is  mine."  The  king  re- 
ceived his  suppliant  with  the  greatest  favor,  listened  with  attention 
to  his  schemes  for  the  subjugation  of  Greece,  and  sent  him  down  to 
Asia  Minor  furnished  with  ample  resources.  He  was  allotted  con- 
siderable revenues  for  his  support,  and  made  tyrant  of  IMagnesia, 
where  he  dwelt  in  great  state.  Here  he  was  joined  by  his  family, 
and  his  friends  in  Attica  contrived  to  remit  him  the  greater  part 
of  his  fortune.  Eighty  talents  had  been  seized  by  the  state,  yet 
this  was  only  the  smaller  half  of  the  wealth  of  a  man  who  at  the 
moment  he  entered  public  life  had  not  three  talents  of  his  own. 
Themistocles  ruled  at  Magnesia  for  a  few  years,  and  then  died, 
without  having  fulfilled  any  of  the  promises  which  he  had  made  to 
the  Persian.  It  is  probable  that  he  never  had  the  heart  to  injure 
Athens,  and  resigned  himself  to  ending  his  life  in  exile  as  the  pen- 
sioner of  the  barbarian.  If  he  had  really  intended  to  forward  the 
intrigues  of  Artaxerxes,  there  is  little  doubt  that  he  might  have  done 
much  against  the  liberties  of  Greece;  that  he  failed  in  his  promise 
argues  want  of  will  rather  than  want  of  power.  Perhaps  his  last 
years  may  have  been  made  less  unbearable  to  him  by  the  sight  of 
the  rapid  expansion  of  the  naval  power  of  Athens,  a  power  of  which 
he  had  himself  been  the  sole  founder. 


Chapter    XXIII 

RISE  OF  ATHENIAN  EMPIRE,  471-458  B.C. 

THREE  years  after  Themistocles  had  suffered  ostracism  and 
disappeared  from  the  poHtics  of  Athens,  his  great  rival  was 
removed  by  death.  Aristeides  had  come  to  be  considered 
so  far  above  all  mere  party  and  faction  that  his  death  was  mourned 
by  every  class  alike — as  much  by  the  democrats,  who  remembered 
his  services  at  Byzantium  and  his  later  constitutional  reforms,  as  by 
the  old  Attic  party,  which  recollected  the  history  of  his  earlier  years. 
Although  the  legends  which  relate  that  he  died  in  absolute  poverty 
deserve  little  credit,  it  is  certain  that  he  was  not  an  obol  the  richer 
for  all  the  years  he  had  spent  in  the  service  of  the  state.  Athens 
never  saw  his  like  again ;  though  she  owned  many  able  statesmen  in 
after  years,  and  many  true  patriots,  she  was  never  so  happy  as  to 
produce  another  man  who  combined  in  such  a  degree  the  spirit  of 
honor  and  self-abnegation  with  the  highest  practical  ability. 

The  death  of  Aristeides  left  Cimon  the  most  prominent  figure 
in  Athenian  politics.  The  son  of  Miltiades  was  a  man  of  generous 
impulses  and  perfect  honesty,  but  he  could  never  rise  above  the 
position  of  a  party  leader,  or  win  the  entire  confidence  of  his  fellow- 
citizens.  The  aristocratic  spirit  was  so  deeply  rooted  in  him  that 
he  was  constantly  acting  in  a  way  which  caused  him  to  be  suspected 
by  the  democratic  party.  Above  all,  his  reverence  and  admiration 
for  Sparta,  and  the  efforts  which  he  made  to  keep  his  country  on 
good  terms  with  her,  were  destined  to  work  him  harm.  The  Athe- 
nians could  never  believe  that  a  man  who  loved  Laconian  manners 
and  admired  the  Laconian  constitution  was  a  safe  political  guide. 
Nevertheless,  there  were  many  things  in  his  favor :  his  first  appear- 
ance in  public  life  had  been  when  he  discharged,  in  the  true  spirit 
of  filial  piety,  the  fine  which  had  been  inflicted  on  his  father  Miltia- 
des. Next  he  had  ably  seconded  Aristeides  at  the  time  of  the  foun- 
dation of  the  Confederacy  of  Delos.  Again  he  had  greatly  distin- 
guished himself  in  the  campaign  against  the  Persian  garrisons  in 
Thrace,  the  first  occasion  on  which  he  had  been  placed  in  supreme 

233 


ATHENIAN    EMPIRE  233 

470  B.C. 

command  of  an  Athenian  armament.  Moreover,  his  Hfe  at  home 
was  devoted  to  winning-  the  hearts  of  the  multitude.  He  threw  his 
parks  and  gardens  open  to  the  public,  and  kept  a  free  table  for  all 
the  poorer  members  of  his  own  deme.  We  are  even  assured  that 
he  used  to  walk  abroad  with  a  retinue  of  well-dressed  slaves,  and, 
if  he  met  a  citizen  in  threadbare  clothes,  would  order  some  one  of 
them  to  change  garments  with  him.  But  all  this  liberality  won 
him  applause  rather  than  confidence  from  the  classes  that  he 
courted. 

Cimon's  political  schemes  were  entirely  directed  towards  the 
East.  He  thought  that  Athens  should  carefully  avoid  all  entangle- 
ments in  the  quarrels  of  European  Greece,  and  devote  herself  solely 
to  the  war  with  Persia  and  the  strengthening  of  the  maritime 
confederacy.  He  wished  to  preserve  a  benevolent  attitude  towards 
Sparta,  and  even  to  assist  her,  if  need  should  arise,  to  maintain 
her  old  position  of  predominance  on  land.  In  return  he  hoped  to 
secure  her  good  will,  and  to  induce  her  to  acquiesce  in  the  naval 
supremacy  of  Athens.  His  blind  admiration  for  the  Lacedaemo- 
nians caused  him  to  forget  the  narrowness  and  selfishness  of  their 
views,  and  to  hope  that  they  would  join  in  a  fair  and  equal  alliance 
— a  policy  of  which  those  dull  egoists  were  quite  incapable. 

While  Athens  was  under  the  political  guidance  of  Cimon,  her 
maritime  expeditions  never  ceased.  In  470  B.C.  she  fell  upon  the 
island  of  Scyros  and  occupied  it.  The  inhabitants,  a  people  of 
Dolopian  race,  were  much  addicted  to  piracy,  and  had  made  them- 
selves such  a  nuisance  to  traders  that  their  expulsion  was  hailed  as 
a  public  benefit  to  Greece.  The  island  was  occupied  by  a  body  of 
Athenians  as  "  Cleruchs."  They  settled  there,  not  as  an  independ- 
ent community,  but  as  an  outlying  body  of  citizens  who  did  not 
abandon  their  civic  rights  at  home.  Athenian  superstition  was  much 
gratified  by  the  discovery  in  Scyros  of  a  gigantic  skeleton,  which 
was  pronounced  to  be  that  of  the  old  Attic  hero  Theseus,  who  had, 
according  to  legend,  died  in  exile  on  the  island.  The  bones  were 
brought  to  Athens  with  great  rejoicings,  and  a  temple  named  the 
Theseum  was  built  over  them. 

A  more  important  expedition  was  that  which  Cimon  led,  a  few 
years  later,  to  liberate  the  Greek  cities  of  Lycia  and  Pamphylia, 
many  of  which  were  still  in  the  hands  of  the  Persians.  He  set  sail 
from  Cnidus  with  three  hundred  Athenian  and  Ionian  galleys,  and 
passed   eastward,  expelling  Persian  garrisons   from   Phaselis  and 


234  GREECE 

467    B.C. 

other  places.  At  last  he  heard  that  a  fleet  was  collecting  to  oppose 
him.  The  satrap  in  command  had  not  yet  been  joined  by  his 
Phoenician  contingents,  and  in  order  to  avoid  a  battle  retired  up 
the  river  Eurymedon,  on  whose  shores  a  considerable  land  army 
was  lying.  Cimon  was  set  upon  fighting  before  this  reinforcement 
arrived;  he  pushed  up  the  river  and  brought  the  enemy  to  action 
in  a  confined  space  where  the  superior  seamanship  of  the  Athenians 
was  of  little  avail.  Nevertheless  he  gained  a  decisive  victory,  and 
when  the  defeated  Persians  ran  their  galleys  aground  and  en- 
deavored to  save  them  by  the  aid  of  their  land  army,  he  put  his  hop- 
lites  ashore  and  won  a  second  battle  on  the  beach.  His  good  for- 
tune and  skillful  strategy  combined  to  give  him  yet  another  triumph ; 
putting  to  sea,  he  intercepted  the  eighty  Phoenician  galleys,  which 
had  set  out  to  join  the  main  armament,  and  destroyed  most  of  them 
off  the  coast  of  Cyprus. 

This  brilliant  series  of  victories  completely  broke  the  naval 
power  of  Persia;  two  generations  were  to  pass  before  a  barbarian 
fleet  was  again  seen  in  Greek  waters.  Meanwhile  Phaselis  and  the 
other  Greek  towns  of  the  neighborhood  joined  the  Confederacy  of 
Delos,  and  the  liberation  of  the  Asiatic  Hellenes  was  completed. 

The  nominal  object  of  the  league  which  the  Athenians  and 
the  lonians  had  formed  at  Byzantium  was  now  fulfilled.  There 
was  no  longer  any  Greek  state  in  servitude  to  the  barbarian.  It 
might,  therefore,  be  reasonably  pleaded  that  the  reasons  for  the 
existence  of  the  Confederacy  of  Delos  no  longer  survived.  The 
Persian  had  ceased  to  be  dangerous,  and  any  further  attacks  on 
him  could  merely  lead  to  unnecessary  expenditure  of  blood  and 
money.  Moreover,  the  continuance  of  the  league  left  in  the  hands 
of  Athens  a  power  of  taxing  her  allies  and  imposing  orders  on  them 
which  was  decidedly  in  contradiction  to  the  universal  Greek  desire 
for  "  autonomy."  The  states  of  Asia  and  the  Aegean  had  placed 
power  in  her  hands  in  the  moment  of  danger,  but  had  not  intended 
it  to  be  permanent.  AVhen  the  crisis  was  over,  they  began  to 
think  of  withdrawing  from  the  league  and  managing  their  own 
affairs. 

The  first  state  which  declared  its  secession  from  the  Confeder- 
acy of  Delos  was  the  wealthy  island-city  of  Naxos  in  the  Cyclades. 
Probably  her  citizens  remembered  the  repulse  which  they  had  in- 
flicted on  the  Persian  in  501  B.C.,  and  thought  that  they  were  once 
more  quite  able  to  take  care  of  themselves.     In  the  same  year  that 


ATHENIAN    EMPIRE  233 

465  B.C. 

the  battle  of  the  Eurymedon  was  fought,  they  announced  that  they 
intended  to  withdraw  from  the  league.  In  strict  equity  Athens 
ought  to  have  allowed  her  recalcitrant  ally  to  secede ;  but  she  had  no 
intention  of  doing  so.  Her  greatness  and  strength  were  so  bound  up 
with  her  position  as  head  of  the  Confederacy  of  Delos,  that  her 
statesmen  had  no  thought  of  allowing  the  league  to  dissolve.  When 
Naxos  proclaimed  its  secession  it  was  immediately  blockaded  by 
an  Athenian  fleet.  After  a  siege  of  some  duration  the  islanders 
were  forced  to  surrender;  they  were  punished  by  the  demolition 
of  their  walls,  the  forfeiture  of  their  warships,  and  the  imposition 
of  a  heavy  fine. 

It  was  now  evident  to  the  whole  body  of  the  allies  of  Athens 
that  by  joining  the  league  they  had  provided  themselves  with  a 
mistress  rather  than  a  leader.  Moreover,  the  slackness  of  many 
members  of  the  confederacy  had  been  for  some  time  working  to 
diminish  the  naval  strength  of  the  whole  body  of  allies  as  compared 
with  that  of  Athens.  It  had  grown  customary  for  cities,  especially 
small  places  which  had  no  old  traditions  of  naval  greatness,  to  com- 
pound for  their  contingent  of  ships,  by  paying  a  larger  annual  con- 
tribution in  money.  Athens  had  gladly  accepted  their  offers,  and 
the  galleys  which  should  have  been  supplied  by  them  were  now 
replaced  by  Athenian  vessels  maintained  by  their  composition- 
money.  This  enabled  the  Athenian  government  to  keep  afloat  a 
much  larger  number  of  ships  than  could  have  been  supported  from 
the  mere  revenues  of  Attica.  There  was  at  first,  perhaps,  no  ulterior 
motive  in  the  minds  of  Cimon  or  his  fellows  when  they  supported 
this  scheme.  They  were  merely  desirous  of  having  a  larger  number 
of  Athenian  vessels  with  them,  because  of  their  superiority  in  effi- 
ciency to  those  of  the  allies.  But,  at  the  same  time,  the  system  of 
composition  worked  entirely  in  the  direction  of  giving  Athens  a 
complete  mastery,  and  of  turning  her  allies  into  mere  payers  of 
tribute. 

Two  years  after  the  reduction  of  Naxos  another  powerful 
island-state  broke  out  into  rebellion  against  the  supremacy  of 
Athens.  The  people  of  Thasos  had  from  very  early  times  possessed  a 
slip  of  coast  land  on  the  mainland  of  Thrace  opposite  to  their  island. 
By  holding  it  they  engrossed  the  trade  of  the  valley  of  the  Strymon, 
and  held  the  rich  gold  mines  of  Mount  Pangaeus.  But  the  Athenians 
after  the  capture  of  Eion  set  themselves  to  develop  that  port  as  the 
commercial  center  of  Thrace.     They  even  sent  two  considerable 


236  GREECE 

465-463   B.C. 

expeditions  inland,  with  the  object  of  seizing  the  lower  course  of 
the  Strymon.  A  spot  called  "  The  Nine  Ways  "  (Ewia  v(Ju{\  where 
that  great  river  first  begins  to  broaden  out  into  its  estuary,  but  can 
still  be  spanned  by  a  bridge,  was  the  chosen  site  for  a  fortress  to 
secure  the  hold  of  Athens  on  the  land.  But  the  native  Thracian 
tribes  banded  themselves  together,  and  fell  upon  the  invaders  with 
such  desperation  that  both  the  Athenian  armies  were  defeated;  the 
rout  of  the  second  and  larger  force  in  465  b.c.  was  a  heavy  disaster 
for  Athens;  of  the  ten  thousand  men  under  Leagrus  who  had 
formed  the  expedition,  the  larger  half  were  cut  to  pieces  on  the 
battle-field.  It  was  probably  the  discouragement  which  this  defeat 
caused  at  Athens  that  emboldened  Thasos  to  declare  her  secession 
from  the  Confederacy  of  Delos.  She  wished  to  save  her  Thracian 
trade  before  Athens  could  make  another  attempt  to  divert  it  from 
her.  The  Thasians  did  not  rely  on  their  own  resources  alone ;  they 
enlisted  the  Thracians  and  Macedonians  of  the  mainland,  and  sent 
to  Sparta  to  endeavor  to  induce  the  ephors  to  declare  war  on 
Athens,  as  a  traitor-state  who  was  endeavoring  to  steal  away  the 
autonomy  of  her  neighbors.  The  Spartans  were  in  a  jealous  and 
sullen  mood,  and  sufficiently  alarmed  at  the  continued  growth  of 
Attic  power  to  make  them  think  of  granting  aid  to  Thasos.  But 
at  the  very  moment  that  they  were  about  to  declare  war,  they  were 
diverted  from  it  by  a  disaster  that  no  one  could  have  foreseen.  The 
island-state  was  therefore  left  to  its  own  resources;  and  these  were 
so  considerable  that  she  held  out  against  the  force  of  the  Athenian 
confederacy  for  two  whole  years.  But  her  ultimate  failure  was 
inevitable  when  she  met  with  no  assistance  from  without.  She 
was  obliged  at  last  to  surrender  to  Cimon,  whose  army  had  long 
been  lying  before  her  walls.  Like  Naxos,  she  was  punished  for 
her  defection  by  the  loss  of  her  war-fleet  and  her  fortifications,  and 
the  imposition  of  a  fine  of  many  talents.  Still  more  galling  must 
have  been  the  final  loss  of  her  trade  with  Thrace,  which  now  passed 
entirely  into  Athenian  hands. 

Up  to  the  moment  of  the  siege  of  Thasos,  Athens  had  been  for 
some  fourteen  or  fifteen  years  entirely  untroubled  by  the  home  affairs 
of  Greece ;  this  freedom  she  owed  partly  to  the  policy  of  Cimon, 
and  partly  to  the  condition  of  affairs  in  Peloponnesus.  Since  the 
fall  of  Pausanias,  Sparta  had  been  undergoing  many  troubles  at 
home.  Pier  old  rival,  Argos,  had  at  last  recovered  from  the  blow 
which  had  been  dealt  her  by  Cleomenes  in  the  previous  generation. 


ATHENIAN    EMPIRE  237 

468-464  B.C. 

In  468  B.C.  she  began  to  bestir  herself,  and  to  reclaim  her  old  do- 
minion over  her  nearest  neighbors.  One  of  her  expeditions  ended 
in  the  final  destruction  of  Mycenae,  the  little  Achaian  state  in  the 
hills  which  had  survived  so  many  vicissitudes  of  fortune.  It  last 
appears  in  history  as  having  sent  a  small  contingent  to  Plataea,  in 
marked  contrast  to  the  selfish  indifference  of  Argos.  Now  at  last 
it  met  its  fate,  and  was  left  an  empty  ring  of  Cyclopean  walls  on  its 
lonely  hillside  (468  B.C.).  This  activity  of  the  Argives  soon 
brought  down  on  them  the  anger  of  Sparta ;  and  a  war  broke  out, 
in  which  many  of  the  Arcadian  states  lent  their  aid  to  Argos.  The 
Spartans  fought  two  severe  battles — one  in  front  of  Tegea  against 
the  allied  Tegeans  and  Argives;  the  other  at  Dipaea  with  the  full 
force  of  Arcadia,  except  the  Mantineans,  who,  out  of  hatred  to 
Tegea,  clung  to  their  old  masters.  In  both  conflicts  the  Lacedae- 
monians were  victorious,  and  Argos  had  once  more  to  sink  back  into 
her  usual  sullen  apathy,  while  the  Arcadians  returned  to  their  al- 
legiance. It  was  soon  after  the  termination  of  this  war  that  the 
overtures  of  the  Thasians  were  made  at  Sparta.  The  event  which 
prevented  them  from  receiving  attention  was  the  great  earthquake 
of  464  B.C.  Such  a  terrific  shock  had  never  visited  Peloponnesus 
before ;  its  worst  force  was  felt  in  the  valley  of  the  Eurotas.  The 
earth  was  cleft  asunder  into  chasms ;  fearful  landslips  occurred  on 
the  slopes  of  Taygetus ;  while  in  the  town  of  Sparta  hardly  a  house 
or  temple  was  left  standing,  and  the  loss  of  life  was  enormous.  This 
disaster  emboldened  the  Helots  to  attempt  a  rising.  They  had  been 
more  suspected  and  oppressed  than  ever  since  the  conspiracy  of 
Pausanias,  and  were  ready  for  any  desperate  treason.  All  Messenia 
rose  as  one  man,  and  much  of  Laconia  followed  its  example.  The 
Spartans,  backed  by  their  Perioeci,  had  great  difficulty  in  making 
head  against  the  rebels,  who  fortified  as  their  base  of  operations 
the  old  Messenian  citadel  and  sanctuary  on  Mount  Ithome. 

The  Spartans  were  still  engaged  in  a  desperate  struggle  with 
their  revolted  subjects  when  the  siege  of  Thasos  came  to  an  end. 
Cimon,  who  was  now  at  the  height  of  his  reputation  and  power, 
saw  with  distress  the  troubles  of  the  city  he  so  much  admired.  He 
set  himself  to  persuade  the  Athenians  that  they  ought  to  forget  old 
grudges,  and  save  from  destruction  the  state  which  had  shared  with 
them  the  glory  of  the  Persian  war.  "  Would  they,"  he  asked,  "  con- 
sent to  see  Hellas  lamed  of  one  leg,  and  Athens  drawing  without  her 
yoke-fellow?"     His   pleading  was   bitterly  opposed   by  the   anti- 


238  GREECE 

460  B.C. 

Spartan  party  at  Athens,  headed  by  two  statesmen,  Ephialtes  and 
Pericles,  who  had  already  come  into  notice  as  antagonists  of  Cimon. 
But  the  more  generous  and  unwise  policy  prevailed,  and  four 
thousand  hoplites  were  sent  to  the  aid  of  Sparta.  This  army  was 
pursued  by  misfortune ;  it  was  so  unsuccessful  in  attacking  Ithome, 
that  the  Spartans  attributed  its  failure  to  ill  will  rather  than  ill  luck. 
They  therefore  began  to  treat  their  allies  with  marked  discourtesy, 
and  at  last  sent  them  home  without  a  word  of  thanks,  merely 
stating  that  their  sen-ices  could  be  of  no  further  use.  This  rudeness 
and  ingratitude  fully  justified  the  anti-Spartan  party  at  Athens  for 
their  opposition  to  the  projects  of  Cimon,  and  gave  them  a  power 
with  the  assembly  which  they  had  not  previously  enjoyed. 

Cimon  was  now^  no  longer  able  to  deal  with  the  policy  of  the 
state  as  he  chose,  and  the  conduct  of  affairs  began  to  pass  into 
the  hands  of  men  whose  foreign  and  domestic  policy  were  alike 
opposed  to  all  his  views.  Ephialtes  and  Pericles  proceeded  to  form 
alliances  abroad  with  all  the  states  which  were  ill  disposed  towards 
Sparta,  and  at  home  to  commence  a  revision  of  the  constitution. 
They  were  determined  to  carry  out  to  its  furthest  logical  develop- 
ment the  democratic  tendency  which  Cleisthenes  had  introduced  into 
the  Athenian  polity.  Of  Ephialtes,  the  son  of  Sophonides,  com- 
paratively little  is  known.  Although  he  at  first  appears  as  the  recog- 
nized leader  of  the  popular  and  anti-Spartan  party  at  Athens,  he 
was  destined  to  be  cut  off  so  early  in  his  career  that  we  have  little 
record  of  his  character  and  doings.  He  seems  to  have  been  an 
eloquent  and  fiery  speaker,  and  an  extreme  democrat.  But  Pericles 
was  a  man  of  very  different  importance.  He  was  the  son  of  Xan- 
thippus,  the  accuser  of  Miltiades  in  489  B.C.,  and  the  victor  of 
Mycale  and  Sestos ;  while  on  his  mother's  side  he  came  of  the  blood 
of  the  Alcmaeonidae.  Pericles  was  staid,  self-contained,  and  haughty 
— a  strange  chief  for  the  popular  party.  But  his  relationship  to 
Cleisthenes,  and  the  enmity  which  existed  between  his  house  and 
that  of  Cimon,  urged  him  to  espouse  the  cause  of  democracy.  More- 
over, the  foreign  policy  to  which  he  was  devoted  was  the  one 
which  had  commended  itself  to  the  populace.  He  wished  to  con- 
tinue the  schemes  of  Themistocles,  and  to  extend  the  Athenian 
power  in  all  directions,  without  any  regard  for  the  susceptibilities 
of  Sparta.  The  war  with  Persia  he  was  ready  to  abandon,  now 
that  all  danger  from  that  side  had  passed  away,  while  he  designed 
to  strengthen  and  enlarge  the  Confederacy  of  Delos  in  every  pos- 


ATHENIAN    EMPIRE  2^9 

460  B.C. 

sible  way,  and  to  make  use  of  its  power  to  the  west  as  well  as 
the  east  of  the  Aegean.  While  Cimon  had  Greece  in  his  mind, 
Pericles  could  only  think  of  Athens,  and  the  temper  of  the  times 
was  favorable  to  the  narrower  policy. 

Pericles  was  a  man  of  grave  and  noble  presence ;  his  friends  in 
admiration  and  his  enemies  in  jest  alike  compared  him  to  Zeus. 
He  lived  a  reserved,  secluded  life,  and  was  seldom  to  be  seen 
except  on  great  public  occasions.  His  eloquence  was  all  the  more 
effective  for  not  being  heard  every  day;  for  he  always  withheld 
himself,  and  only  appeared  to  speak  on  affairs  of  high  moment. 
But  though  the  man  was  better  fitted  to  command  respect  than 
affection  from  his  followers,  his  policy  was  one  which  was  so  well 
suited  to  the  spirit  of  the  times  that  the  populace  was  quite  enthusi- 
astic in  his  favor. 

The  first  aim  which  Ephialtes  and  Pericles  set  before  them- 
selves was  the  cutting  down  of  the  power  of  the  Areopagus. 
That  body  had  since  the  Persian  war  been  the  stronghold  of  the 
Conservative  and  philo-Laconian  party.  Though  it  had  no  longer 
any  important  political  power  by  the  strict  letter  of  the  constitution, 
its  patriotic  efforts  during  the  Persian  wars  had  enabled  it  to  retain 
much  influence.  Moreover,  it  was  the  one  political  corporation  at 
Athens  whose  members  held  office  for  life,  and  were  not  responsible 
for  their  votes  to  the  people.  This  by  itself  sufficed  to  give  the 
Areopagus  a  conservative  tendency,  like  that  which  may  be  remarked 
in  such  bodies  as  the  English  Plouse  of  Lords. 

Ephialtes  took  the  lead  in  the  attack  on  the  Areopagus.  He 
chose  a  moment  when  Cimon  was  away  in  the  field,  assisting 
the  Spartans  against  the  revolted  Helots.  After  a  violent  struggle, 
he  succeeded  in  carrying  a  law  which  deprived  the  Areopagus 
of  its  ancient  censorial  power,  and  reduced  it  to  a  mere  court 
to  try  homicide.  As  a  sign  that  the  guardianship  of  the  laws 
was  thereby  taken  from  the  ancient  corporation  and  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  people,  he  brought  down  from  the  Acropolis  the 
tablets  inscribed. with  the  laws  of  Solon,  and  set  them  up  before 
the  Prytaneium  in  the  market-place.  The  prerogatives  of  the 
Areopagus  were  divided  among  the  Council  of  Five  Hundred, 
the  Ecclesia,  and  the  Dicasteries.  The  law  courts  took  over  its 
moral  supervision  of  the  private  lives  of  the  citizens,  while  the 
Nomophylaces  undertook  its  other  function  of  guarding  the  con- 
stitution.    These  officers  were  given  a  seat  of  honor  in  the  public 


240  GREECE 

458    B.C. 

assembly,  and  instructed  to  interfere  with  a  veto,  whenever  a  legis- 
lative proposal  was  made  which  transgressed  one  of  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  constitution. 

When  Cimon  came  home  from  the  war  he  was  wildly  enraged 
at  the  advantage  that  had  been  taken  of  his  absence,  and  actually 
endeavored  to  repeal  the  decree  of  Ephialtes  on  a  technical  point 
of  law.  This  brought  matters  to  a  crisis,  and,  in  the  confusion, 
recourse  was  had  to  the  test  of  ostracism.  It  decided  against 
Cimon,  who  therefore  went  into  banishment.  But  this  wrong 
against  the  greatest  general  of  Athens  was,  not  long  after,  avenged 
by  an  over-zealous  and  unscrupulous  friend.  Ephialtes  was  slain 
by  assassins  in  his  own  house,  and  though  no  one  could  accuse 
Cimon  himself,  it  was  certain  that  his  party  were  responsible  for 
the  deed.  The  immediate  result  of  this  murder  was  to  leave 
Pericles  in  sole  and  undivided  command  of  the  democratic  party. 

The  foreign  policy  of  Pericles  soon  began  to  involve  Athens 
in  troubles  at  home.  He  concluded  alliances  with  Argos  and  Thes- 
saly,  both  states  at  variance  with  Sparta,  and  thereby  made  a 
collision  with  the  Lacedaemonian  confederacy  inevitable.  He  gave 
still  more  direct  offense  to  Corinth,  one  of  the  most  powerful 
members  of  that  confederacy,  by  concluding  a  close  alliance  with 
Megara.  That  state  had  been  engaged  in  unsuccessful  war  with 
Corinth,  and  had  placed  herself  under  the  protection  of  Athens 
to  save  her  existence.  In  Boeotia,  too,  he  stirred  up  enmity,  by 
giving  an  active  support  to  the  democratic  party  in  that  country, 
which  was  at  this  moment  endeavoring  to  subvert  the  oligarchies 
which  prevailed  in  most  of  the  cities.  These  provocations  made 
war  inevitable. 

In  458  B.C.  the  storm  burst;  the  Corinthians  formed  an  alliance 
with  the  Aeginetans,  whose  jealousy  of  Athens  was  as  great  as 
it  had  been  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  century,  and  with  their 
Dorian  kinsmen  at  Epidaurus.  They  were  encouraged  by  the  fact 
that  a  fleet  of  no  less  than  two  hundred  Athenian  ships  had  just 
been  sent  to  Egypt,  to  continue  the  help  which  Cimon  had  afforded 
to  the  rebel  prince  Inarus  in  his  revolt  against  Persia.  The  allies 
had  also  the  secret  good  will  of  Sparta,  but  as  that  state  had  not 
yet  succeeded  in  putting  down  its  revolted  Helots,  it  could  not  spare 
any  aid  to  its  confederates,  and  did  not  even  declare  war  on  Athens. 


Chapter    XXIV 

ATHENS  AT  THE  HEIGHT  OF  HER  POWER, 
458-445  B.C. 

AT  the  moment  of  the  outbreak  of  the  first  important  naval 
/  \  war  which  she  had  to  wage  with  a  Greek  enemy  since  the 
X  Jk.  formation  of  her  empire,  Athens  took  two  important  steps. 
The  first  was  destined  to  guard  against  the  risk  of  misfortunes  by- 
sea  ;  it  consisted  in  the  tranference  from  Delos  to  Athens  of  the  cen- 
tral treasury  of  the  confederacy.^  The  Samians  pointed  out  the 
exposed  situation  of  the  sacred  island,  and  the  great  hoard  was 
moved  to  Athens.  If  they  had  been  more  wary  the  Samians 
would  have  refrained  from  proposing  this  motion,  which  helped 
Athens  forward  one  more  stage  in  the  process  of  turning  her 
"  hegemony  "  into  an  empire.  By  the  removal  of  the  common 
funds  of  the  league  from  the  sanctuary  of  Delos,  the  original 
religious  and  patriotic  purpose  of  the  confederates  was  obscured ; 
by  their  storage  at  Athens  it  began  to  appear  that  the  allies  were 
paying  tribute  to  their  powerful  protectress.  It  was  not  long  be- 
fore the  Athenians  came  to  regard  the  treasury  as  their  own, 
and  to  draw  upon  it  for  purely  Attic  needs,  which  had  no  con- 
nection with  the  welfare  of  the  other  confederates.  Pericles  and 
his  party  were  not  at  a  loss  for  arguments  to  justify  this  mis- 
appropriation of  the  funds  of  the  league.  They  represented  that 
Athens  had  for  some  time  had  the  entire  supervision  of  the  war 
in  her  hands,  and  that  the  other  cities  had  practically  abandoned 
their  share  in  the  undertaking:  Chios,  Lesbos,  and  Samos  were 
the  only  states  which  continued  to  supply  ships  to  the  confederate 
fleet ;  all  the  others  had  commuted  their  galleys  for  money.  Athens 
had  continued  the  struggle  with  Persia  in  the  most  energetic 
way,  and  spent  so  much  of  her  own  money  on  it,  that,  if  she  tres- 
passed on  the  surplus  in  the  common  chest  of  the  league,  she  was 
but  repaying  herself  for  her  losses.  Moreover,  no  one  could 
dispute  that  she  had  carried  out  the  purposes  of  the  league  with 
1  Some,  however,  place  the  date  of  the  transference  in  455  or  454 

241 


242  GREECE 

458  B.C. 

perfect  success;  she  had  liberated  all  the  Hellenic  subjects  of  the 
Great  King,  and  was  now  giving  him  such  trouble  in  Egypt  that 
he  would  never  be  able  to  stir  against  Hellas.  If  this  could  be  done 
at  less  expense  than  was  originally  calculated,  it  was  due  to  her, 
and  she  deserved  the  surplus  as  her  reward. 

The  second  important  event  of  the  year  458  B.C.  was  the  com- 
mencement of  the  famous  "  Long  Walls  "  of  Athens.  They  had 
been  suggested  by  a  much  smaller  work  of  the  same  kind  at  Megara. 
After  forming  their  alliance  with  that  city,  the  Athenians  had  con- 
nected the  old  town,  which  lay  on  a  hill  not  quite  a  mile  from  the 
sea,  with  its  seaport  of  Nisaea,  by  building  two  walls  which  secured 
a  safe  passage  between  them.  But  the  Megarian  "  Long  Walls  " 
were  only  seven  stadia  from  end  to  end,  while  Athens  was  divided 
from  Phalerum  and  Peiraeus  by  thirty-five  and  forty  stadia  respec- 
tively. The  gigantic  scheme  of  constructing  walls  for  the  whole 
four  miles  which  lie  between  the  old  city  and  the  water's  edge  could 
only  have  been  formed  when  a  war  with  an  enemy  overwhelmingly 
powerful  on  land  was  in  view.  It  must  have  been  the  dread  of 
Spartan  interference  which  led  to  the  building  of  these  great  works. 
When  they  were  finished,  Athens,  Peiraeus,  and  Phalerum  formed 
the  angles  of  a  vast  fortified  triangle,  while  the  space  between  them, 
a  considerable  expanse  of  open  country,  could  be  utilized  as  a  place 
of  refuge  for  the  population  of  Attica  and  even  for  their  flocks  and 
herds.  Some  years  afterwards  a  second  wall  (rd  dca  fiiffov  rer/o^) 
was  erected  close  to  and  parallel  with  the  original  wall  running  to 
Peiraeus.  This  gave  an  additional  security  to  the  communication 
between  the  city  and  its  ports ;  even  if  the  Phaleric  wall  were  forced, 
there  would  still  be  free  access  from  the  upper  city  to  Peiraeus. 

The  war  with  Corinth  and  Aegina  commenced  by  two  severe 
naval  engagements  in  the  Saronic  Gulf.  The  first,  fought  off  the 
island  of  Cecryphaleia  near  the  coast  of  Argolis,  had  no  decisive 
result.  But  when  the  fleets  met  for  the  second  time  opposite  to  the 
town  of  Aegina  itself,  the  Athenians  gained  a  crushing  victory. 
No  less  than  seventy  Corinthian  and  Aeginetan  vessels  fell  into  their 
hands.  The  astonishing  part  of  this  success  was  the  fact  that  two 
hundred  Athenian  galleys  were  at  that  moment  in  Egypt,  so  that  it 
was  with  less  than  half  her  resources  that  Athens  succeeded  in 
beating  the  two  navies  which  were  reckoned  the  second  and  third  in 
Greece. 

After   their  victory  the  Athenians   landed   and   laid   siege   to 


ATHENS    IN    POWER  243 

458  B.C. 

Aegina  with  the  full  force  of  hoplites  that  was  at  that  moment 
at  home.  The  Corinthians  determined  to  do  all  they  could 
to  save  their  ally,  and  resolved  to  create  a  diversion  by  attacking 
Megara.  They  calculated  that,  as  the  whole  force  of  Athens 
was  either  in  Egypt  or  at  Aegina,  no  army  could  be  put  into  the 
field  against  them,  unless  the  siege  of  Aegina  was  raised.  But 
they  had  not  reckoned  on  the  indomitable  spirit  of  their  ene- 
mies. Since  all  the  men  of  military  age  were  absent,  Athens 
determined  to  call  out  those  who  had  not  yet  reached  it,  or  had 
long  passed  it.  Myronides  raised  an  army  exclusively  composed 
of  boys  and  old  men,  and  marched  to  relieve  Megara.  He 
took  up  a  defensive  position  and  repulsed  the  attack  which  was 
made  on  him;  although  not  very  severely  handled,  the  Corinthians 
retired  home  and  Megara  was  saved.  But  when  the  defeated 
soldiery  learned  the  nature  of  the  force  which  had  beaten  them, 
they  found  the  taunts  of  their  fellow-citizens  unbearable,  and 
returned  to  take  their  revenge.  Myronides  again  went  out  to  meet 
them,  probably  reinforced  by  the  troops  of  Megara.  This  time  the 
battle  was  decisive ;  the  Corinthians  were  routed,  and  their  loss  was 
heavy,  for  a  large  body  were  surrounded  in  a  walled  enclosure  and 
shot  down  to  a  man.  As  an  assertion  of  the  courage  of  her  citizens, 
Athens  regarded  these  battles  as  only  inferior  to  Marathon,  In 
commemoration  of  the  achievements  of  this  season  monumental 
pillars  were  erected  in  the  Cerameicus,  recording  that  "  in  one  and 
the  same  year  the  soldiers  of  Athens  had  fallen  off  Cyprus,  in 
Egypt,  Phoenicia,  Argolis,  Aegina,  and  Megara."  *  A  fragment  of 
this  inscription  still  survives,  to  recall  the  energy  of  the  Athenians  at 
the  highest  moment  of  their  glory. 

Meanwhile  a  second  war  had  broken  out  in  Central  Greece, 
between  two  ancient  enemies,  the  Phocians  and  the  Boeotian 
League.  The  ruling  oligarchies  of  Boeotia  were  so  anti-Athenian 
in  their  sentiments  that  the  Phocians  were  felt  to  be  fighting  the 
battle  of  Athens  by  keeping  employed  an  enemy  who  would  other- 
wise have  joined  Corinth  and  Aegina.  During  this  war  the  Pho- 
cians fell  upon  and  occupied  the  little  district  to  their  north,  the 
home  of  the  four  Dorian  communities  who  had  remained  behind  in 
their  original  seats,  when  the  rest  of  the  nation  invaded  Pelop- 

2  The  fighting  in  Egypt,  Aegina,  and  Megara  we  have  already  mentioned. 
That  in  Argolis  was  an  Athenian  descent  on  the  Halieis,  which  failed ;  that  in 
Cyprus  and  Phoenicia  was  dependent  on  the  great  expedition  to  Egypt. 


244  GREECE 

457  B.C. 

onnesus.  The  conquered  Dorians  made  a  piteous  appeal  to 
Sparta,  the  natural  protector  of  all  states  of  kindred  blood.  The 
Spartans  were  at  this  moment  beginning  to  make  some  headway  in 
their  long  struggle  with  the  revolted  Helots;  and  though  Ithome 
was  not  yet  taken,  felt  that  they  were  in  honor  bound  to  aid  their 
compatriots.  Making  a  great  effort,  they  dispatched  an  army  of 
eleven  thousand  men,  partly  Laconians,  partly  Peloponnesian  allies, 
by  sea  across  the  gulf  of  Corinth  into  Boeotia.  Here  they  were 
joined  by  the  Thebans  and  their  friends,  and  marched  into  Phocis. 
After  completely  defeating  the  Phocians  and  driving  them  out  of 
Doris,  they  set  forth  homeward.  But  their  way  lay  through  the 
territory  of  Megara,  and  when  they  arrived  on  its  borders  they  were 
refused  a  passage.  The  Athenians  had  seen  with  suspicion  a 
Spartan  army  in  Boeotia,  and,  regarding  war  as  inevitable,  had 
determined  to  face  its  dangers  at  once,  and  to  prevent  the  returning 
army  from  joining  the  Corinthians.  They  had  obtained  a  thou- 
sand hoplites  from  Argos,  and  a  considerable  body  of  horse  from 
Thessaly,  and,  joining  these  to  the  levies  of  Megara  and  Plataea 
and  such  force  as  Athens  could  spare,  had  posted  themselves  in 
front  of  the  passes  which  led  from  Boeotia  towards  the  Isthmus. 
It  was  said  that  some  of  the  oligarchic  party  at  Athens  had  been 
making  overtures  to  the  Spartans,  but  the  traitors  were  few ; 
Cimon,  though  in  exile,  appeared  in  the  Athenian  army  as  soon  as 
it  had  passed  the  border,  and  earnestly  begged  that  he  might  fight 
as  a  volunteer  in  the  ranks  of  his  own  tribe.  The  strategi  refused 
him  the  favor,  but  ere  he  departed  he  adjured  his  friends  to  prove 
by  their  conduct  in  battle  that  their  party  contained  no  traitors. 
The  armies  met  near  Tanagra,  and  a  hard-fought  engagement 
ensued ;  for  a  long  time  the  day  was  doubtful,  but  in  the  heat  of  the 
fight  the  Thessalian  cavalry  deserted  their  allies,  and  lost  the  Athe- 
nians the  victory.  No  less  than  a  hundred  of  the  friends  of  Cimon 
fell  in  the  forefront  of  the  battle,  proving  by  their  reckless  courage 
that  the  Conservative  party  was  unjustly  accused  of  treason.  The 
Spartans  were  never  skillful  at  improving  the  results  of  a  success, 
and  their  commander,  the  regent  Nicomedes,^  contented  himself 
with  ravaging  the  Megarid,  and  then  returned  to  Peloponnesus 
across  the  now  unguarded  passes  of  Geraneia. 

By  her  last  stroke  of  policy  Athens  had  now  added  Sparta  and 

'  Nicomcdes  was  regent  in  behalf  of  the  young  king  Pleistoanax,  son  of 
Pausanias. 


A  T  H  E  N  S    I  N    P  0  W  E  R  245 

454  B.C. 

the  Boeotian  League  to  the  hst  of  her  enemies.  It  was  necessary 
to  act  quickly  and  promptly,  or  she  would  be  crushed,  when  the  full 
force  of  Boeotia  and  Peloponnesus  was  put  into  the  field.  The  first 
step  taken  was  to  mark  the  suspension  of  party-feuds  at  Athens ; 
the  party  of  Cimon  had  behaved  so  well  at  Tanagra  that  their  con- 
duct had  won  the  confidence  of  their  very  opponents.  Pericles 
himself  proposed  the  decree  which  revoked  the  ostracism  of  his 
great  rival.  Then,  long  before  the  campaigning  season  had  arrived, 
Myronides,  with  the  full  force  of  Athens  at  his  back,  burst  into 
Boeotia.  The  inroad  was  quite  unexpected,  for  the  winter  was  not 
yet  done.  No  aid  from  Corinth  or  Sparta  was  at  hand,  but  the 
Thebans  and  their  supporters  from  the  other  Boeotian  cities  met  the 
invaders  at  Oenophyta  in  the  valley  of  the  Asopus.  After  a  hard 
struggle  they  were  beaten,  and  the  land  lay  exposed  to  the  con- 
queror. The  successes  of  Myronides  were  rapid  and  startling;  a 
discontented  party  existed  in  every  Boeotian  town,  which  regarded 
the  rule  of  their  oligarchs  with  hatred.  These  partisans  of  democ- 
racy joined  the  Athenians,  and  town  after  town  threw  open  its 
gates.  Even  Thebes,  the  center  of  the  oligarchic  party,  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  invaders.  Myronides  then  set  up  democratic  consti- 
tutions in  every  city,  and  handed  over  the  government  to  the  par- 
tisans of  Athens ;  the  great  families,  for  the  most  part,  retired  into 
exile.  It  would  seem  probable  that  the  Boeotian  League  was  dis- 
solved, and  a  separate  treaty  concluded  by  Athens  with  each  indi- 
vidual state ;  at  any  rate,  the  complete  autonomy  of  all  towns,  small 
and  great,  was  secured,  and  the  paramount  influence  of  Thebes  in 
the  district  destroyed.  When  Boeotia  fell  into  the  hands  of  Athens, 
the  Locrians  of  Opus  also  cast  off  their  oligarchy,  and  sent  a  hun- 
dred hostages  from  their  leading  families  to  be  kept  at  Athens. 
The  Phocians,  who  had  been  at  war  with  Thebes,  were  also  glad  to 
enter  the  Athenian  alliance.  Thus  at  a  single  blow  Athens  had 
become  a  great  land  power,  and  secured  dominion  over  all  the  dis- 
tricts as  far  as  Mount  Oeta.  Moreover,  she  was  well  backed  by  a 
party  in  each  state,  who  regarded  their  predominance  at  home  as 
bound  up  with  her  success. 

Meanwhile  the  siege  of  Aegina  was  drawing  to  a  close ;  in  spite 
of  all  their  operations  on  the  mainland,  the  Athenians  had  stead- 
fastly kept  up  the  blockade,  and,  after  nine  months  of  waiting,  the 
provisions  of  the  garrison  began  to  fail.  Except  one  reinforcement 
of  three  hundred  hoplites,  they  had  received  no  help  from  Pelopon- 


246  GREECE 

457.454  B.C. 

nesus,  and  their  own  resources  were  quite  exhausted.  The  ancient 
rivals  of  Athens  were  obHged  to  sue  for  peace,  which  they  only 
obtained  on  condition  of  destroying  their  walls,  giving  up  their  war- 
galleys,  and  entering  the  Confederacy  of  Delos  as  tribute-paying 
members. 

Sparta  seems  to  have  taken  little  trouble  to  support  her  allies 
outside  Peloponnesus,  but  within  it  her  efforts  were  at  last  drawing 
to  a  successful  end.  After  ten  years  of  revolt  the  Helots  were 
driven  to  bay ;  their  last  bands  were  besieged  in  Ithome  and  finally 
permitted  to  depart  under  an  agreement  never  to  return  to  Pelo- 
ponnesus. An  Athenian  fleet  under  Tolmides  was  at  that  moment 
ravaging  the  coasts  of  Messenia,  and  the  defeated  rebels  were  taken 
on  board.  Tolmides  soon  after  captured  the  town  of  Naupactus 
on  the  Aetolian  coast,  and  here  he  settled  the  exiled  Messenians  with 
their  families,  to  serve  as  an  outpost  for  Athens  on  the  Corinthian 
Gulf. 

It  would  seem  that  not  even  the  capture  of  Ithome  could  give 
Sparta  sufficient  breathing-space  to  recover  her  strength  and  to 
strive  for  the  hegemony  of  continental  Greece.  For  the  next  three 
years  she  made  no  attempt  to  force  the  passes  of  the  Megarid  and 
attack  Athens.  Nor  could  she  even  defend  Peloponnesus;  she 
had  to  see  her  own  naval  arsenal  at  Gythium  burned,  and  to  hear  of 
the  ravaging  of  the  territories  of  her  Dorian  dependents  of  Sicyon 
and  Epidaurus.  She  could  not  even  prevent  Troezen  and  the  coast 
cities  of  Achaia  from  openly  joining  the  Athenian  alliance;  it 
would  seem,  indeed,  that  Argos  alone  sufficed  to  keep  her  in  check 
while  Athens  was  extending  her  dominion  right  and  left. 

There  is  no  knowing  where  the  extension  of  the  Athenian 
power  would  have  stopped,  if  a  fearful  disaster  had  not  intervened 
to  weaken  its  growth.  In  454  B.C.  a  large  Athenian  expedition, 
not  less  than  two  hundred  galleys,  was  again  dispatched  to  Egypt 
to  aid  King  Inarus.  But  at  that  moment  the  satrap  Megabyzus  in- 
vaded that  country  with  a  stronger  army  than  the  Great  King  had 
previously  devoted  to  its  conquest.  The  Athenian  fleet  sailed  up  the 
Nile  as  far  as  Memphis,  and  got  so  far  from  the  sea  that  they  were 
finally  cut  off  from  their  retreat,  and  besieged  with  their  Egyptian 
allies  in  the  isle  of  Prosopitis.  Megabyzus  diverted  one  of  the 
branches  of  the  Nile  which  encircles  the  island,  and  crossed  over  on 
foot ;  a  desperate  struggle  ensued,  and,  after  burning  their  ships, 
the  main  body  of  Athenians  were  cut  to  pieces.     The  survivors  de- 


ATHENS    IN    POWER  24.7 

452-449  B.C. 

fended  themselves  so  vigorously  that  the  Persian  granted  them  quar- 
ter, and  thus  a  few  scattered  fugitives  escaped  across  the  desert  to 
Cyrene,  and  brought  the  news  to  Athens. 

By  the  end  of  452  B.C.  the  belligerents  in  Greece  had  arrived  at 
a  standstill,  and  by  the  mediation  of  Cimon  a  truce  for  five  years 
was  brought  about  between  Sparta  and  Athens,  together  with  their 
respective  allies.  That  no  definitive  peace  was  concluded  was  due 
to  the  action  of  Corinth,  who  would  not  consent  to  recognize  the 
new  position  of  Athens  on  her  borders.  The  agreement,  therefore, 
only  amounted  to  a  prolonged  armistice,  based  upon  the  actual  posi- 
tion of  the  various  powers.  This  moment  marks  the  highest  tide 
in  the  fortunes  of  Athens.  Her  influence  was  predominant  in 
Megaris,  Boeotia,  Locris,  Phocis,  Achaia,  and  Troezen,  while  Argos 
was  her  firm  ally.  Her  empire  on  land  covered  as  large  an  expanse 
as  that  of  Sparta,  while  at  sea  every  city  in  the  Aegean  and  Pro- 
pontis  from  Aegina  to  Byzantium  did  her  homage.* 

Freed  from  their  war  with  Sparta,  the  Athenians  turned  to 
revenge  their  defeat  in  Egypt.  Cimon  was  once  more  at  home, 
and  had  regained  no  small  portion  of  his  old  power.  He  found  it 
easy  to  persuade  his  fellow-citizens  that  the  massacre  of  Prosopitis 
called  for  vengeance,  and  obtained  a  fleet  of  two  hundred  vessels 
and  a  free  commission  to  attack  what  portion  of  the  Persian  empire 
he  might  choose.  He  determined  to  fall  on  the  Phoenician  cities 
of  Cyprus,  which  still  maintained  their  allegiance  to  Artaxerxes. 
Accordingly  he  laid  siege  to  Citium ;  while  lying  before  its  walls  he 
was  stricken  down  by  disease,  and  felt  his  end  approaching.  But 
on  his  very  deathbed  he  was  able  to  give  the  directions  which  re- 
sulted in  two  brilliant  victories ;  the  Phoenician  fleet  which  came  to 
raise  the  blockade  of  Citium  was  defeated  off  the  neighboring  port 
of  Salamis,  and  shortly  after  a  land  army  was  routed  on  the  shore. 
The  expedition,  thus  deprived  of  its  leader,  returned  to  Athens, 
and  made  no  further  attack  on  Asia. 

Cimon's  untimely  death — he  was  still  in  the  full  vigor  of  man- 
hood— preserved  him  from  seeing  the  commencement  of  a  series  of 
disasters  which  were  about  to  befall  his  country.  The  Athenian 
land  empire  was  to  be  lost  as  rapidly  as  it  was  won.  It  was  an 
impossibility  that  such  old  enemies  as  the  Boeotians  should  ever  be 
faithful  allies  to  Athens ;  the  democratic  governments  which  had 

*  A  district  on  the  Bay  of  Adramyttium  in  Aeolis  was  the  only  piece  of  land 
that  interrupted  the  continuous  line  of  Athenian  allies  in  Asia. 


248  GREECE 

447  B.C. 

been  set  up  in  the  various  cities  of  that  land  grew  more  and  more 
unpopular.  Not  only  were  they  hated  by  patriotic  Boeotians  as  the 
tools  of  Athens,  but  they  made  themselves  odious  by  their  misgov- 
ernment.  At  last,  in  447  B.C.,  an  insurrection  broke  out  against  the 
democratic  party  in  the  towns  of  Northern  Boeotia.  All  the  oli- 
garchic exiles  hastened  home  to  join  the  rebels,  who  made  their 
stronghold  at  Orchomenus.  The  Athenians  dispatched  Tolmides 
with  not  more  than  a  thousand  hoplites  to  support  the  Boeotian 
democrats.  But  as  he  marched  along  the  shore  of  Lake  Copais  be- 
tween Haliartus  and  Coroneia,  he  was  surprised  by  the  oligarchic 
army,  who  fell  on  him  and  routed  him  by  the  force  of  superior 
numbers.  Tolmides  himself  fell  on  the  field,  but  several  hundreds 
of  his  soldiery  were  taken  prisoners,  and  to  secure  their  lives  the 
Athenians  were  forced  to  conclude  a  treaty  with  the  victors,  by 
which  they  engaged  not  to  interfere  any  more  in  Boeotian  affairs. 
They  were  therefore  compelled  to  look  on  while  their  democratic 
partisans  were  expelled  from  the  various  cities,  and  the  old  consti- 
tution was  reintroduced.  Once  more  oligarchy  was  restored,  and 
Thebes  took  up  her  old  position  as  managing  partner  in  the  league. 
Locris  immediately  followed  the  example  of  Boeotia,  and  disclaimed 
her  dependence  on  Athens. 

Nor  was  this  all ;  the  cities  of  Euboea,  who  had  long  been  quiet 
and  obedient  members  of  the  Delian  confederacy,  now  thought  that 
a  favorable  opportunity  for  freeing  themselves  from  their  tribute 
and  their  dependence  on  Athens  had  come.  Histiaea,  Eretria,  Styra, 
Carystus,  and  the  other  towns  of  the  island  rose  in  concert.  So  press- 
ing was  the  emergency  considered,  that  Pericles  himself  took  the 
command  of  an  army  which  hastened  across  to  reconquer  the  island ; 
but  scarcely  had  he  reached  it  when  he  was  recalled  by  the  equally 
disastrous  news  that  Megara  had  revolted.  That  city  had  entered 
the  Athenian  alliance  of  her  own  free  will,  and  had  been  saved  by 
it  from  falling  under  the  power  of  Corinth.  But  with  signal  perfidy 
her  inhabitants  not  only  broke  off  their  connection  with  Athens, 
but  surprised  and  massacred  a  body  of  Athenian  troops  which  lay 
within  their  walls.  It  was  a  small  consolation  that  their  port  of 
Nisaea  remained  in  the  hands  of  Athens.  Corinth,  Epidaurus,  and 
Sicyon  lent  their  encouragement  to  their  revolted  Dorian  kinsmen. 
Nor  was  this  the  end  of  the  misfortunes  of  Athens;  it  was  remem- 
bered that  the  five  years'  truce  with  Sparta  was  on  the  eve  of  expir- 
ing, and  ominous  preparations  for  war  were  being  made  in  Pelo- 


ATHENS    IN    POWER  249 

446  B.C. 

ponnesus.  The  expectation  was  well  gounded;  Athens'  extremity 
was  Sparta's  opportunity,  and  when  the  five  years  were  over  war 
was  promptly  declared. 

In  the  spring  of  446  B.C.  the  young  king  Pleistoanax  and  his 
guardian  Cleandridas  led  an  overwhelming  force  from  Pelopon- 
nesus into  the  Megarid,  and  prepared  to  attack  Attica.  They  had 
reached  Eleusis  when  they  suddenly  halted,  and  after  a  few  days 
returned  home.  It  was  soon  rumored  abroad  that  bribery  had 
been  at  work.  Spartan  generals  were  notoriously  venal,  and  it  is 
probable  that  the  report  was  true,  which  related  that  Pericles  had 
entered  into  secret  relations  with  the  enemy,  and  paid  a  vast  sum 
to  Cleandridas,  perhaps  to  Pleistoanax  also,  on  the  condition  that 
they  should  find  excuses  for  causing  the  expedition  to  fail.  This 
at  least  is  certain,  that  when  the  Peloponnesian  army  returned,  the 
ephors  apprehended  and  tried  both  the  king  and  his  guardian,  con- 
victed them,  and  sent  both  into  banishment. 

When  this  danger  was  passed,  Pericles  took  fifty  ships  and 
five  thousand  hoplites,  and  hastened  across  to  Euboea.  The  main 
force  of  Athens,  both  by  land  and  sea,  was  left  behind  to  guard 
against  attack  from  Corinth  or  Peloponnesus.  With  the  force  that 
was  entrusted  to  him  Pericles  carried  out  a  most  brilliant  cam- 
paign ;  he  retook  city  after  city  till  the  whole  island  was  subdued, 
and  finally  strengthened  the  hold  of  Athens  on  the  land  across  the 
Euripus  by  planting  a  second  Cleruchy  therein.  The  land  for  this 
settlement  was  taken  from  the  exiled  oligarchs  of  Histiaea. 

But  Euboea  was  the  only  one  of  her  numerous  losses  which 
Athens  was  destined  to  recover.  The  odds  against  her  were  so 
great  that  Pericles  himself  shrank  from  the  idea  of  continuing  the 
contest.  He  let  it  be  known  at  Sparta  that  Athens  was  ready  to 
treat  for  peace  on  the  basis  of  abandoning  her  claim  to  any  empire 
by  land.  When  negotiations  were  found  to  be  feasible,  an  embassy 
headed  by  Callias  was  sent  to  negotiate  with  the  ephors.  They  con- 
ceded everything  on  land  that  Sparta  and  her  allies  could  ask,  and 
a  "  Thirty  Years'  Peace  "  was  concluded  between  the  belligerents, 
Athens  recognized  the  hegemony  of  Sparta  in  Peloponnesus,  while 
Sparta  undertook  not  to  interfere  with  the  Confederacy  of  Delos. 
All  Athenian  alliances  with  outlying  states,  such  as  Achaia  or  Troe- 
zen,  were  abrogated,  and  the  garrisons  which  she  maintained  in 
Nisaea  and  certain  other  outlying  fortresses  withdrawn.  Megara 
and  Boeotia  were  recognized  as   free  and  autonomous  states,  and 


250  GREECE 

445  B.C. 

enrolled  among  the  allies  of  Sparta.  To  sum  up  the  conditions  of 
the  peace,  we  may  say  that  Athens  gave  up  everything  on  land, 
asking  in  return  nothing  but  that  her  naval  supremacy  should  be 
left  untouched. 

Not  long  after  the  conclusion  of  the  "  Thirty  Years'  Peace  " 
Athens  concluded  another  important  piece  of  negotiation.  Now 
that  Cimon  was  dead  there  was  no  one  among  her  statesmen  who 
desired  to  prosecute  the  never-ending  war  with  Persia.  The  cam- 
paigns in  Egypt  had  failed  so  signally  and  cost  so  many  lives  that 
no  further  land  operations  were  likely  to  be  undertaken,  while  by 
sea  Persia  had  nothing  more  to  lose.  Accordingly  Callias,  the  suc- 
cessful negotiator  at  Sparta,  was  sent  up  to  Susa  to  propose  con- 
ditions of  peace  to  King  Artaxerxes.  Athenian  vanity  in  after 
years  fabled  that  Callias  extorted  such  conditions  as  he  chose  from 
the  Persian,  even  so  far  as  to  make  him  promise  to  send  no  war- 
vessels  west  of  the  Cyanean  rocks  at  the  mouth  of  the  Bosphorus^ 
and  the  Chelidonian  cape  in  Lycia.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no 
formal  treaty  seems  to  have  been  concluded,  and  Callias  on  his  re- 
turn was  prosecuted  for  willful  mismanagement  of  the  negotiation. 
However,  by  a  working  agreement  with  the  satraps  of  Asia  Minor, 
a  modus  vivendi  was  established.  The  Athenians  and  their  con- 
federates abstained  from  any  further  attacks  on  Persian  territory, 
while  the  satraps  remained  contented  with  the  inland  and  made 
no  attempt  to  regain  the  coast.  Nevertheless  the  names  of  the  lost 
cities  of  Ionia  and  Caria  still  remained  inscribed  on  the  tribute-roll 
of  the  Great  King,  and  the  Persian  power  awaited  its  opportunity 
to  reassert  all  its  old  rights. 


Chapter    XXV 

THE  YEARS  OF  PEACE,  445-431  B.C. 

THE  "  Thirty  years'  Peace  "  concluded  between  Athens  and 
Sparta  in  445  B.C.,  though  not  destined  to  endure  for  half 
of  its  appointed  time,  gave  Greece  some  fourteen  years  of 
comparative  quiet.  The  war  which  it  terminated  had  not  brought 
about  any  final  balance  of  power ;  it  had  merely  settled  that  Sparta 
should  retain  a  hegemony  on  land,  and  that  Athens  should  confine 
her  empire  to  the  sea.  Which  was  the  stronger  had  not  yet  been 
decided,  and  till  this  was  known  it  was  impossible  that  any  per- 
manent peace  should  be  established.  Nevertheless,  the  two  great 
powers  having  made  trial  of  each  other's  strength,  and  discovered 
that  the  final  struggle  for  mastery  would  be  long  and  exhausting, 
were  in  no  hurry  to  recommence  hostilities.  It  required  the  accu- 
mulated grievances  of  fourteen  years  to  bring  them  again  into 
collision. 

At  Athens  these  years  coincided  with  the  zenith  of  the  power 
and  influence  of  Pericles,  who  was  practically  first  minister  of  the 
republic  for  the  whole  period,  though  he  had  several  times 
to  undergo  attacks  on  his  policy  and  to  suffer  temporary 
eclipses  of  his  popularity.  Now  that  Cimon  was  dead  there  was  no 
one  in  the  state  who  could  hope  to  vie  in  personal  influence  with 
Pericles.  The  conservative  party  could  only  oppose  to  him  Thucy- 
dides,  son  of  Melesias,  a  statesman  of  far  inferior  capacity  and 
power.  In  the  democratic  party  there  was  no  one,  since  the  murder 
of  Ephialtes,  who  in  any  measure  approached  the  importance  of  the 
great  leader.  He  was,  in  fact,  so  pre-eminently  the  leading  man 
in  the  state  that  his  enemies  did  not  scruple  to  call  him  its  tyrant, 
and  to  insinuate  that  his  appearance,  demeanor,  and  oratory  bore 
a  marked  resemblance  to  those  of  Peisistratus, 

In  his  domestic  policy  Pericles  set  himself  to  work  out  to  its 
full  extent  the  movement  which  he  had  begun  by  his  attack  on  the 
-Areopagus.  He  set  to  work  to  thoroughly  democratize  all  the  in- 
stitutions of  the  state,  to  do  away  with  all  the  checks  which  limited 

251 


252  GREECE 

445-431   B.C. 

the  omnipotence  of  the  Ecclesia  in  poHtical  and  the  Dicasteries  in 
judicial  matters.  While  he  himself  was  alive  the  consequences  of 
this  policy  were  not  immediately  apparent,  for  the  people  were  so 
habitually  ready  to  follow  him  that  its  decrees  seldom  lacked  the 
unity  of  purpose  which  marks  the  action  of  a  single  mind.  As  long 
as  the  Ecclesia  let  itself  be  guided  by  one  leader  the  real  effects  of 
a  purely  democratic  constitution  did  not  make  themselves  felt.  It 
was  only  after  his  death,  when  the  assembly  found  itself  urged  in 
many  different  directions  by  a  crowd  of  statesmen  who  agreed  in 
nothing  but  their  mediocre  ability,  that  the  defects  of  "  government 
by  plebiscite  "  became  visible,  and  measures  that  indicated  energy 
or  vacillation,  desire  for  war  or  desire  for  peace,  were  passed  in 
chaotic  succession,  according  as  the  passion  of  the  moment  decreed. 

One  of  the  first  measures  of  Pericles  was  the  complete  vulgar- 
ization of  the  archonship.  In  456  B.C.  it  was  opened  to  the  Zeu- 
gitae,  having  been  up  to  that  time  confined  to  the  wealthier  classes. 
Nor  was  this  all.  Very  soon  men  who  were  not  even  possessed  of 
the  modest  income  of  a  Zeugites  appeared  as  candidates,  and  were 
not  refused.  The  only  formality  retained  was  that  when  the  lot  fell 
on  them  they  were  not  registered  as  Thetes,  but  as  Zeugitae. 

Among  the  most  characteristic  of  the  features  of  the  policy 
of  Pericles  were  the  laws  which  subsidized  the  poorer  citizens  for 
their  trouble  in  attending  to  the  affairs  of  the  state.  Instead  of 
holding  that  only  those  who  interested  themselves  in  such  matters 
should  be  encouraged  to  take  part  in  public  business,  Pericles  de- 
sired to  attract  every  citizen  to  the  Ecclesia  and  the  law  courts, 
and  used  the  most  direct  means  to  secure  their  attention  by  pro- 
viding them  with  pay  out  of  the  public  purse.  At  some  date  early 
in  the  fifth  century  the  Heliaea,  which  Cleisthenes  had  instituted  as 
the  supreme  court  of  justice  for  the  state,  had  been  divided  into 
the  smaller  bodies  known  as  Dicasteries.  It  was  probably  because 
of  the  large  increase  of  business  which  came  before  it — as  the  ar- 
chonship gradually  lost  credit  and  men  ceased  to  be  satisfied  to  take 
their  lawsuits  before  the  six  junior  archons  for  trial — that  this 
division  took  place.  The  work  of  the  Dicasteries  was  still  more  in- 
creased when  Pericles  and  Ephialtes  stripped  the  magistrates  of 
well-nigh  all  their  judicial  powers.  But  the  largest  rise  in  the  num- 
ber of  suits  needing  a  court  to  decide  them  must  have  resulted  from 
the  gradual  increase  of  the  custom  of  sending  cases  pending  be- 
tween members  of  the  Confederacy  of  Delos  to  be  tried  at  Athens. 


YEARSOFPEACE  253 

445-431    B.C. 

It  was  but  natural  that  legal  disputes  between  two  of  her  subject 
allies  should  be  settled  by  the  head  of  the  league ;  but  not  only  these, 
but  all  cases  in  which  an  Athenian  was  either  plaintiff  or  defendant, 
and  finally,  as  it  would  appear,  all  important  suits — even  though 
they  were  between  citizens  of  the  same  city — were  called  up  to  the 
supreme  court  of  justice.  The  vast  number  of  trials  on  hand  must 
have  proved  a  heavy  tax  on  the  time  and  patience  of  those  citizens 
who  were  drawn  as  jurymen,  and  found  themselves  set  down  for 
a  year's  work  in  the  Dicasteries.  But  Pericles  changed  the  face  of 
affairs  by  paying  the  Dicast,  and  thereby  made  his  position  one  to 
be  sought  rather  than  avoided.  The  sum  given  was  at  first  one  obol 
— an  amount  which  seems  small  to  us,  but  was  enough  to  be  of 
consequence  to  a  poor  Athenian ;  it  w^as  afterwards  raised  to  three, 
nearly  the  same  as  the  hoplite's  daily  pay.  From  this  time  forward 
the  Dicasteries  became  the  almost  permanent  abode  of  many  citi- 
zens, particularly  of  those  of  the  poorer  classes  who  were  past  the 
age  of  military  service,  and  therefore  had  no  other  duty  which  could 
override  the  liability  to  act  as  jurymen.  Forty  years  later  the 
leaders  of  the  democracy  began  to  pay  the  Ecclesia  as  well  as  the 
Dicasteries,  a  step  which  was  a  logical  carrying  out  of  Pericles's 
idea. 

The  Athenian  democrats  boasted  that  by  means  of  these  sub- 
sidies a  knowledge  of  law  and  politics  was  diffused  through  the 
whole  body  of  citizens,  and  a  level  of  political  intelligence  reached 
with  which  no  other  state  in  Greece  could  vie.  This  was  to  a  certain 
extent  true ;  but  there  is  a  limit  to  the  educating  influence  of  politics 
or  lawsuits,  and  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  that  country  was 
likely  to  be  well  governed  where  every  citizen  aspired  to  be  a  pro- 
fessional statesman  and  judge,  and  was  paid  for  his  aspirations. 
The  enemies  of  Pericles  summed  up  the  results  of  his  legislation  by 
saying  that  it  made  the  Athenians  idle,  loquacious  and  money- 
loving.  It  led  men,  they  complained,  to  spend  more  time  than  was 
right  in  hanging  about  the  Pnyx  and  the  law-courts;  it  set  every 
one  practicing  public  oratory  or  judicial  pleading;  it  induced  Athe- 
nians to  think  that  they  ought  to  be  paid  for  carrying  out  the  pri- 
mary duties  of  citizenship — liabilities  which  ought  to  be  regarded 
as  sacred  trusts  rather  than  as  work  deserving  remuneration.  Prob- 
ably the  opponents  of  Pericles  had  the  greater  share  of  reason  on 
their  side;  it  is  likely  that  the  state  suffered  more  from  the  en- 
couragement of  amateur  statesmanship  than  it  gained  by  the  in- 


254  GREECE 

445-431   B.C. 

creased  amount  of  political  intelligence  which  prevailed  in  the  mul- 
titude. 

The  system  of  subsidizing  the  poor  did  not  stop  short  in  the 
Ecclesia  and  the  Dicasteries ;  it  was  carried  by  Pericles  himself  into 
other  spheres  of  life.  He  was  the  author  of  laws  by  which  the 
state  charged  itself  with  numerous  doles  and  payments  on  the 
occasion  of  public  festivals.  It  is  said  that  these  measures  origi- 
nated in  his  opposition  to  Cimon ;  the  wealthy  conservative  states- 
man had  been  accustomed  to  throw  open  his  parks  and  gardens  to 
the  multitude,  and  to  keep  free  house  for  his  demesmen.  Pericles's 
private  means  did  not  permit  him  to  practice  bribery  on  such  a 
magnificent  scale,  and  he  is  said  to  have  adopted  the  idea  of  supply- 
ing from  the  public  purse  what  was  not  forthcoming  from  his  own. 
He  is  recorded  as  having  been  the  proposer  of  a  number  of  grants 
of  public  money  made  at  festivals,  in  order  that  the  peor  might 
not  only  witness  state  pageants,  but  might  even  buy  themselves 
meat  and  wine  at  the  public  expense  whenever  days  of  public  re- 
joicing came  round.  It  was,  in  short,  an  anticipation  of  the  system 
whereby  Rome  in  a  later  age  was  demoralized  by  the  doles  and 
games  of  her  emperors.  The  worst  feature  of  such  grants  and 
of  all  kindred  institutions  was  that  the  money  did  not  really  come 
out  of  the  treasury  of  the  Attic  state,  but  out  of  that  of  her  allies, 
the  confederates  of  the  league  of  Delos,  for  without  their  accumu- 
lated tribute  the  distributions  would  have  been  impossible. 

A  not  less  efficacious  method  for  draining  the  treasury  was 
discovered  when  Pericles  set  to  work  to  strengthen  and  beautify 
Athens  out  of  the  common  funds  of  the  league.  We  have  already 
spoken  of  the  third  Long  Wall  which  he  built  between  the  upper 
city  and  the  Peiraeus ;  but  this  was  one  of  the  least  ambitious  of  his 
ventures  in  stone  and  mortar.  Far  more  important  among  his 
achievements  were  the  noble  public  buildings  with  which  he  adorned 
Athens.  Some  of  these  lay  in  the  level  parts  of  the  city ;  such  was 
the  Odeum  at  the  foot  of  the  southeastern  cliff  of  the  Acropolis, 
whose  roof — copied,  according  to  legend,  from  the  vast  and  gor- 
geous tent  of  Xerxes — sheltered  musical  performances.  Others  lay 
in  the  Peiraeus,  such  as  the  great  Corn  Hall  and  the  Deigma,  or 
exchange  for  merchants.  Even  outside  Athens  magnificent  tem- 
ples were  commenced  at  Rhamnus,  Eleusis,  and  Sunium.  But  by 
far  the  most  important  group  of  buildings  which  Pericles  took  in 
hand  were  those  situated  on  the  Acropolis.     At  its  western  end, 


YEARS    OF    PEACE  255 

445-431   B.C. 

where  alone  the  slope  was  accessible,  the  architect  Mnesicles  was 
set  to  build  the  Propylaea,  or  entrance  halls  of  the  citadel.  These 
works  alone  cost  two  thousand  talents.  They  consisted  of  a  mag- 
nificent flight  of  marble  steps,  seventy  feet  broad,  leading  up  to 
a  double  colonnade,  through  which  the  visitor  entered  the  Acropolis. 
This  central  colonnade  was  flanked  by  two  projecting  wings  carried 
along  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  and  opening  with  smaller  rows  of  col- 
umns on  to  the  central  staircase.  The  northern  wing  contained  a 
celebrated  chamber  called  the  Pinacotheca,  from  its  being  covered 
with  frescoes  of  the  great  painter  Polygnotus. 

After  passing  through  the  Propylaea,  the  visitor  found  himself 
facing  the  colossal  bronze  statue  of  Athene  Promachos,  which  rep- 
resented the  guardian  goddess  of  the  city  in  full  armor,  with  out- 
stretched spear  and  shield.  This  great  work  of  Pheidias  was  more 
than  fifty  feet  in  height,  and  was  raised  twenty  feet  more  by  its 
pedestal,  till  it  overtopped  the  temple  roofs ;  the  golden  plume  of 
Athene's  helmet  was  to  be  seen  far  out  at  sea,  and  formed  a  well- 
known  landmark  to  the  sailors  of  the  Gulf  of  Aegina. 

Beyond  the  statue  of  Athene  Promachos  stood  the  greatest  of 
the  works  which  Pericles  called  into  being — the  famous  Parthenon, 
the  largest  and  most  beautiful,  though  not  the  most  revered,  of  the 
temples  on  the  Acropolis.  The  neighboring  temple  of  Athene 
Polias^  contained  the  sacred  wooden  image  of  immemorial  antiquity 
which  was  the  palladium  of  the  city,  the  holy  olive  tree  which  had 
sprouted  forth  again  after  it  had  been  felled  by  the  ax  of  the  Per- 
sian and  the  living  snake  which  symbolized  the  presence  of  the 
goddess.  But  if  the  Parthenon  did  not  gather  around  it  any  of 
the  old  superstitious  awe  which  the  neighboring  building  called 
forth,  it  symbolized  to  every  Athenian  the  imperial  greatness  of  his 
city.  Not  only  was  its  glorious  decoration  paid  for  out  of  the  funds 
of  the  subject  allies,  but  its  walls  themselves  served  as  the  treasury 
for  the  hoarded  tribute  money  which  gave  Athens  her  strength, 
while  the  inscriptions  which  set  forth  the  amount  that  each  member 
of  the  Delian  League  paid  to  the  central  power  were  engraved  with- 
out. The  architecture  of  the  Parthenon  was  the  work  of  Ictinus, 
its  sculptures  and  reliefs  that  of  Pheidias.  Not  only  did  the  great 
sculptor  place  in  the  "  pediments,"  or  eastern  and  western  gable- 
ends  of  the  temple,  elaborate  groups  representing  the  birth  of 
Athene  and  the  strife  of  Athene  and  Poseidon,  but  he  filled  the 

^  Better  known  as  the  Erechtheum. 


256  GREECE 

445-431    B.C. 

ninety-two  "  metopes,"  or  square  spaces  which  lay  above  the  capitals 
of  the  columns  and  beneath  the  edge  of  the  roof,  with  as  many 
separate  compositions,  showing  the  battles  of  the  ancient  heroes 
with  the  Amazons  and  the  Centaurs.  Moreover,  within  the  outer 
colonnade  of  the  Parthenon  he  traced  along  the  upper  portion  of 
the  wall  of  the  temple  itself  an  endless  procession  of  graceful 
figures,  representing  the  ceremonies  of  the  Panathenaic  festival — 
the  setting  forth  of  the  priests  and  magistrates,  the  maidens  and 
knights  of  Athens,  to  do  honor  to  Athene  on  the  day  of  her  great- 
est festival.  No  less  than  four  thousand  square  feet  of  surface 
were  covered  by  the  works  of  the  sculptor's  untiring  hand.  While 
the  hinder  part  of  the  temple,  called  the  Opisthodomos,  served  as 
a  vast  strong-room  for  the  treasures  of  the  state,  the  front  half 
formed  the  actual  sanctuary.  Here  was  placed  the  most  gorgeous 
of  the  works  of  Pheidias — a  colossal  figure  of  Athene,  wrought  not 
in  marble  or  bronze,  but  in  ivory  and  gold.  Her  robes  alone  con- 
tained forty  talents'  weight  of  gold  ($48,750),  and  her  armor  was 
studded  with  precious  stones  of  great  price.  But  the  mere  monetary 
worth  of  this  imposing  figure  was  as  nothing  compared  with  its 
artistic  value,  as  the  masterpiece  of  the  greatest  sculptor  of  the  an- 
cient world ;  there  was  nothing  in  Greece  which  could  compare  with 
it,  save  the  colossal  Zeus  at  Olympia  which  Pheidias  constructed 
a  few  years  later.  If  Pericles  sinned  against  international  morality 
in  using  the  treasures  of  the  Delian  League  for  the  adornment  of 
Athens,  it  must  at  any  rate  be  confessed  that  he  applied  the  em- 
bezzled talents  to  no  unworthy  end. 

The  final  developments  of  Pericles's  constitutional  changes  did 
not  come  about  till  the  party  w^hich  opposed  them  had  been  com- 
pletely swept  out  of  the  field.  We  have  already  mentioned  that 
after  the  death  of  Cimon  the  leadership  of  the  conservative  and 
philo-Spartan  party  fell  into  the  hands  of  his  kinsman,  Thucydides, 
the  son  of  Melesias.  This  statesman  kept  up  a  bitter  opposition  to 
all  the  proposals  of  Pericles;  he  taught  his  followers  to  sit  close 
together  in  the  assembly,  and  compensate  for  their  lack  of  numbers 
by  their  simultaneous  shouts  and  well-drilled  applause.  But  this 
custom  of  herding  together  also  served  to  betray  to  their  enemies 
their  decided  inferiority  in  voting  strength.  The  democrats  nick- 
named them  "  the  Few,"  and  were  encouraged  to  persevere  by  the 
manifest  majority  which  they  possessed.  It  was  in  vain  that  Thu- 
cydides denounced  all  the  measures  of  Pericles  in  terms  of  warm 


YEARSOFPEACE  257 

'?45-431   B.C. 

moral  indignation,  declaring  that  he  had  brought  dishonor  on 
Athens  by  inducing  her  to  turn  to  her  private  use  moneys  that 
were  contributed  for  the  public  benefit  of  Greece;  and  that  all  the 
world  would  consider  it  the  act  of  a  tyrant  city  to  use  the  gold  of 
the  allies  in  subsidizing  her  proletariate  and  adorning  her  streets 
with  temples  and  monuments :  "  When  Athens  wasted  talents  by 
the  thousand  from  the  Delian  treasury  in  gilding  her  statues  and 
carving  her  shrines,  she  was  but  acting  like  a  light  and  vain  woman 
decking  herself  with  ill-gotten  jewels."  Pericles  made  his  usual 
reply — that  as  long  as  Athens  kept  off  Persian  invasions  she  was 
entitled  to  spend  what  she  chose  out  of  the  funds  of  the  Delian 
League,  and  suppressed  the  fact  that  all  operations  against  Persia 
had  been  abandoned  since  he  came  into  power.  The  continual 
bickering  between  the  democrats  and  the  followers  of  Thucydides 
lasted  till  the  year  443  B.C.,  when  the  persistent  but  fruitless 
opposition  of  Thucydides  was  brought  to  an  end  by  a  recourse  to 
ostracism.  The  stronger  party  voted  his  exile,  and  Pericles  was 
left  without  any  opponent  of  importance. 

The  foreign  policy  which  was  pursued  by  Athens  under  the 
direction  of  Pericles  was  directed  to  vigorous  extension  of  her 
power  in  all  directions,  except  indeed  in  those  continental  districts 
close  at  hand,  where  interference  would  have  brought  about  an  im- 
mediate war  with  Sparta  or  Thebes. 

The  organization  of  the  Delian  League  had  now  been  per- 
fected. It  embraced  all  the  coast  cities  of  Asia  Minor  from  Artane, 
just  outside  the  Bosphorus  in  Bithynia.  down  to  Calydna  in  Lycia. 
Similarly  in  Europe  an  unbroken  chain  of  Athenian  tributaries 
stretched  along  the  Thracian  and  Chalcidian  shores  from  Byzan- 
tium to  Aeneia.  All  the  islands  of  the  Aegean,  except  the  insig- 
nificant Dorian  states  of  Melos  and  Thera,  were  also  numbered 
among  the  confederates.  Even  outside  these  limits  there  were 
many  cities  which  had  joined  the  league ;  Nymphaeum  in  the  distant 
Tauric  Chersonese  (Crimea),  and  Clenderis  in  Cilicia,  were  mem- 
bers of  the  Athenian  alliance  no  less  than  Eretria  or  Aegina. 
Among  the  two  hundred  and  forty-nine  cities  whose  names  appear 
on  the  tribute  lists  which  have  been  dug  out  from  the  ruins  of 
Athens,  only  three — Samos,  Lesbos,  and  Chios — had  refused  to 
compound  their  original  contingents  of  ships  for  a  money  payment, 
and  still  possessed  a  war-navy.  The  remaining  two  hundred  and 
forty-six  were  divided  for  financial  purposes    into    five    groups. 


258  GREECE 

445-431   B.C. 

known  as  the  Thracian,  Insular,  Hellespontine,  Ionian,  and  Carian 
tribute-districts.  At  fixed  times  tax-collecting  galleys  sailed  round 
the  Aegean  and  Hellespont  and  gathered  in  the  contributions  due 
from  each  city,  which  were  finally  paid  over  to  the  Hellenotamiae 
and  stored  in  the  Acropolis  of  Athens.  The  synodic  meetings  seem 
to  have^ dropped  entirely  out  of  use;  if  any  occurred  they  were  mere 
formal  assemblies,  at  which  no  one  except  Athenian  deputies  ap- 
peared. The  total  annual  sum  which  the  tribute  brought  in  during 
the  ascendency  of  Pericles  was  about  six  hundred  talents ;  the  only 
outgoings  for  league  purposes  were  the  nioneys  required  to  keep 
sixty  Athenian  galleys  constantly  cruising  in  the  Aegean.  Hence 
it  was  possible  for  no  less  than  nine  thousand  seven  hundred  talents 
to  accumulate  in  the  Acropolis,  in  spite  of  the  large  sums  which 
were  spent  on  Athenian  state-doles,  pageants,  and  public  edifices. 

The  amount  due  from  each  city  was  carefully  revised  every 
four  years,  and  that  justice  on  the  whole  prevailed  in  the  assessment 
appears  from  the  fact  that  places  like  Aegina  or  Naxos,  against 
which  Athens  might  have  been  expected  to  feel  a  grudge,  are  not 
rated  on  a  heavier  scale  than  their  more  docile  fellow-subjects. 
It  was  not  the  fact  that  they  were  overtaxed,  but  the  fact  that  they 
were  taxed  at  all  for  Athenian  objects,  which  made  the  tribute  so 
hateful  to  the  allies. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  the  Cleriichies  which  were  planted 
by  Pericles  in  Euboea  after  the  rebellion  of  the  year  446  B.C.  Simi- 
lar garrisons  of  Athenian  citizens  were  also  placed  by  him  in  other 
localities,  notably  in  the  Thracian  Chersonese,  the  old  patrimony 
of  Miltiades.  But  such  settlements  were  not  the  only  means  which 
he  devised  for  extending  the  influence  of  Athens ;  actual  colonies 
were  also  sent  forth  to  well-chosen  spots.  Amisus  and  Sinope  in 
Paphlagonia  were  strengthened  by  bands  of  emigrants  dispatched 
under  Athenian  guidance.  The  site  of  Ennea  Hodoi  on  the  Stry- 
mon,  so  fatal  to  the  arms  of  Athens  twenty-nine  years  before, 
was  seized  for  a  third  time,  and  fortified  in  437  b.c.  This 
time  the  Thracians  proved  unable  to  dislodge  the  settlers,  and 
Hagnon  became  the  oekist  of  the  new  town  of  Amphipolis.  The 
Athenian  element  among  the  population  was  in  this  case  but  small, 
but  the  nationality  of  the  oi^cial  founder  served  to  constitute  Am- 
phipolis a  nominal  daughter-state  of  Athens.  The  same  was  the 
case  in  another  colony  of  equal  importance  in  the  far  West.  For 
seventy  years  the  site  of  tlie  great  city  of  Sybaris  on  the  lapygian 


YEARS    OF    PEACE 


259 


445-431    B.C. 


shore  had  been  lying  desolate,  and  the  surviving  families  of  Syba- 
rite origin  had  been  dwelling  scattered  through  Italy.  Pericles  now 
collected  them,  associated  with  them  a  certain  number  of  Athenian 
emigrants  and  a  much  larger  body  of  lonians  and  other  Greeks, 


^'iS^'-'w- 


-2^\ 


/ 


THE  ATHENIAN  EMPIRE 

Islands  sbaded  did  not  pay  tribute 


and  planted  a  new  Sybaris  close  to  the  ruins  of  the  old  city.  Several 
very  distinguished  men  joined  in  the  colonization  of  Sybaris; 
among  them  were  the  historian  Herodotus,  the  philosopher  Pro- 
tagoras, and  the  orator  Lysias.  After  a  short  time  quarrels  arose 
between  the  citizens  of  old  Sybarite  blood  and  the  settlers  from  the 


260  GREECE 

445-431    B.C. 

East ;  the  attempt  of  the  fonner  to  form  themselves  into  an  oli- 
garchy was  put  down,  and,  to  mark  the  changed  character  of  the 
state,  the  victorious  party  changed  its  name  to  Thurii  (443  B.C.). 
Other  attempts  were  made  to  secure  an  opening  for  Athenian  com- 
merce in  the  West,  by  concluding  treaties  with  Segesta,  Leontini, 
and  Rhegium  (454-433  b.c). 

After  445  B.C.  only  one  important  campaign  disturbed  the  ad- 
ministration of  Pericles.  This  was  the  revolt  of  one  of  the  three 
last  states  of  the  Delian  League  which  still  maintained  a  war-navy. 
Samos  had  engaged  in  a  dispute  with  Miletus  about  the  boundaries 
of  her  territory  on  the  mainland.  The  decision  of  the  question  was 
referred  to  the  Athenians,  who  awarded  the  land  to  ]\Iiletus.  But 
the  oligarchy  of  Samos  refused  to  give  up  their  claim  to  the  terri- 
tory, and  remained  obdurate  till  a  fleet  of  forty  ships  sailed  across 
from  Athens  and  entered  their  harbor.  The  commander  was  Peri- 
cles, who  promptly  put  down  the  oligarchic  government,  established 
a  democracy,  and  took  off  a  hundred  hostages,  whom  he  deposited 
at  the  Athenian  Cleruchy  of  Lemnos.  This  high-handed  action 
provoked  the  national  sentiment  of  the  Samians ;  the  remaining 
oligarchs  called  in  the  aid  of  the  satrap  Pissuthnes,  overturned  the 
new  democratic  constitution,  and  disavowed  their  membership  of 
the  Delian  League.  A  few  ships  sailed  hastily  across  to  Lemnos 
and  liberated  the  hostages,  and  then  open  war  on  Athens  was  pro- 
claimed. Undeterred  by  the  memory  of  the  fates  of  Naxos  and 
Thasos,  the  Samians  thought  that  they  could  regain  their  complete 
autonomy,  and  called  on  the  other  members  of  the  Delian  confed- 
eracy to  join  them  in  revolt.  Of  the  whole  body  of  allies,  however, 
only  Byzantium  was  bold  enough  to  declare  its  secession  and  face 
the  wrath  of  Athens. 

The  moment  that  the  news  of  the  Samian  rising  arrived  at 
Athens  an  expedition  was  sent  off  to  attack  the  rebels.  A  fleet  of 
sixty  ships,  among  whose  ten  commanders  Pericles  held  the  chief 
place  and  the  poet  Sophocles  was  also  numbered,  crossed  the 
Aegean,  met  the  Samian  fleet  off  the  island  of  Tragia,  and  defeated 
it.  Soon  after  Pericles  was  largely  reinforced  from  Athens.  Chios. 
and  Lesbos,  till  he  had  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  vessels  with  him, 
and  was  able  to  blockade  Samos  by  sea  and  land.  But  a  false  rumor 
that  the  satrap  Pissuthnes  had  ordered  up  the  Phoenician  fleet  in- 
duced him  to  detach  half  his  force  to  watch  for  its  approach  along 
the   Lvcian    coast.     The    Samians    seized    this    opportunity,    came 


YEARS    OF    PEACE  261 

443-431    B.C. 

boldly  out  of  their  harbor  with  seventy  ships,  and  engaged  the 
blockading  squadron,  which  they  completely  routed.  For  fourteen 
days  they  held  the  mastery  of  the  sea,  and  were  able  to  send  out 
messengers  to  beg  for  aid  from  all  quarters,  and  especially  from 
the  Spartans.  But  soon  Athenian  reinforcements  came  flocking 
from  all  directions,  and  the  blockade  was  renewed.  The  Samians 
held  out  with  desperate  energy ;  in  spite  of  a  number  of  new  siege- 
engines  which  were  constructed  for  Pericles  by  Artemon,  the  most 
celebrated  engineer  of  the  time,  they  maintained  their  defense  with 
complete  success.  It  was  not  till  nine  months  were  passed,  and  it 
had  become  completely  certain  that  no  help  from  without  was  ap- 
proaching them,  that  the  islanders  in  439  B.C.  capitulated.  They 
were  treated  in  accordance  with  the  precedents  of  Naxos  and  Thasos, 
being  compelled  to  raze  their  walls,  give  up  their  war-ships,  and  pay 
an  indemnity  of  a  thousand  talents.  Byzantium  surrendered  the 
moment  that  the  fate  of  Samos  was  known. 

The  appeal  of  the  Samians  to  Sparta  had  nearly  brought  about 
a  general  war  in  European  Greece.  The  ephors  had  summoned 
together  a  congress  of  their  allies,  and  many  states  had  deemed 
the  opportunity  favorable  for  an  attack  on  Athens,  But  the  Corin- 
thians prevailed  on  the  Spartan  government  to  hold  back,  induced, 
it  is  said,  by  the  fact  that  they  themselves  were  in  difficulties  with 
their  subject  allies,  and  dreaded  the  precedent  of  encouraging  re- 
volt. It  was  to  be  another  series  of  grievances,  and  not  the  wrongs 
of  Samos,  that  was  to  cause  the  renewal  of  war  in  Greece. 


Chapter  XXVI 

RIVALRY  OF  SPARTA  AND  ATHENS,  435-432  B.C. 

AS  late  as  the  year  of  the  revolt  of  Samos  the  balance  of 
ZJk  opinion  among  the  allies  of  Sparta  was  still  in  favor  of 
JL  .^  preserving"  peace  with  Athens;  but  very  shortly  after  the 
scales  had  begun  to  incline  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  causes 
which  led  to  this  change  of  feeling  were  very  various.  In  Sparta 
itself  a  new  generation  was  now  coming  to  the  front,  which  had 
grown  up  since  the  truce  of  445  B.C.  These  younger  men  did  not 
remember  the  dangers  and  difficulties  of  the  time  that  had  followed 
the  great  earthquake  of  464  b.c.  and  the  revolt  of  the  Helots.  More- 
over, a  dozen  years  of  unbroken  peace  had  sufficed  to  restore  the 
power  of  Sparta,  and  to  consolidate  once  more  her  ancient  hege- 
mony in  Peloponnesus.  There  was  no  longer  any  fear  of  seeing 
a  renewal  of  those  Athenian  attempts  to  win  territory  within  the 
Isthmus  which  the  elder  men  could  remember.  In  the  depth  of  his 
heart  well-nigh  every  Spartan  felt  a  grudge  against  Athens  for 
having  built  up  an  empire  which — even  since  the  loss  of  her  do- 
minion on  land — was  sufficient  to  overshadow  the  comparatively 
loose  and  ill-defined  hegemony  which  his  own  city  possessed  in 
Peloponnesus.  He  was  jealous  that  any  Grecian  state  should  be 
able  to  vie  with  Sparta,  and  anxious  to  fight  out  to  a  final  decision 
the  question  whether  that  state  or  Sparta  were  really  the  stronger. 
It  was  remembered  that  the  Spartan  discipline  and  the  Spartan 
constitution  existed  for  the  sole  object  of  producing  warlike  effi- 
ciency, yet  for  more  than  a  dozen  years  no  war  had  been  waged. 
Nevertheless,  some  further  impulse  from  without  was  required  to 
induce  the  slow-moving  Lacedaemonians  to  plunge  into  war.  They 
needed  the  pressure  of  circumstances  to  drive  them  to  take  the 
decisive  step. 

Among  the  allies  of  Sparta  there  were  several  states  which  had 
standing  grievances  against  Athens.  The  Thebans  could  never 
forget  the  ten  years  of  xA.thenian  supremacy  in  Boeotia.  and  longed 
for  their  revenge ;  moreover,  they  had  always  before  their  eyes  the 
town  of  Plataea,  once  a  member  of  their  own  confederacy,  but  now 

362 


SPARTA     AND    ATHENS  263 

446-439  B.C. 

an  Athenian  outpost  pushed  forward  beyond  Cithaeron.  The  Me- 
garians  had  a  more  recent  and  a  more  tangible  grievance.  Athens 
had  never  forgiven  them  their  revolt  in  446  B.C.,  and  the  treacher- 
ous massacre  of  their  Athenian  garrison.  Though  compelled  to 
make  peace  with  them,  in  common  with  the  other  allies  of  Sparta, 
in  445  B.C.,  she  had  taken  the  first  opportunity  to  do  them  an  ill 
turn.  Utilizing  as  excuses  some  disputes  about  fugitive  slaves  and 
debatable  lands  on  the  frontier,  she  had  picked  a  quarrel  with 
Megara.  Then,  covering  her  designs  with  one  of  those  supersti- 
tious pleas  which  were  so  well  known  in  Greek  diplomacy,  she  had 
accused  the  Megarians  of  sacrilege,  for  tilling  some  frontier-land 
dedicated  to  Demeter.  Finally,  as  a  punishment  for  this  alleged 
sacrilege,  she  had  closed  her  ports  and  markets  to  Megarian  mer- 
chants, and  compelled  all  her  subject  allies  to  do  the  same.  These 
proceedings  inflicted  a  deep  wound  on  her  Dorian  neighbor.  Me- 
gara had  always  been  a  naval  state,  with  a  considerable  trade  both 
to  east  and  west.  The  prohibition  to  visit  the  harbors  of  any  of 
the  members  of  the  Delian  confederacy  destroyed  half  her  com- 
merce at  a  blow.  The  whole  state  languished  and  decayed  in  con- 
sequence; again  and  again  embassies  were  sent  to  beg  the  aid  of 
Sparta,  and  to  beseech  her  to  compel  the  Athenians  to  rescind  the 
obnoxious  decree.  But  for  some  time  no  result  followed  these 
petitions. 

There  was  yet  another  state,  not  far  from  Megara,  whose  con- 
dition was  likely  to  provoke  discontent  at  Sparta.  Aegina,  once  the 
equal  and  the  rival  of  Athens,  and  for  many  years  a  member  of  the 
Peloponnesian  alliance,  had  been  compelled,  in  the  days  of  Sparta's 
weakness,  to  become  a  mere  dependency  of  Athens  and  to  join  the 
Delian  confederacy.  Though  no  formal  embassy  could  be  sent  by 
her,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  lier  Dorian  oligarchy  contrived 
to  keep  her  unhappy  condition  before  the  eyes  of  the  ephors,  and 
to  make  private  petition  for  release  from  the  Athenian  yoke.  But 
in  spite  of  all  their  grievances,  it  was  neither  Thebes,  Megara,  nor 
Aegina  which  was  to  play  the  chief  part  in  driving  Sparta  into  a 
new  struggle  with  Athens.  Corinth,  the  state  which  in  439  B.C. 
had  been  the  strongest  partisan  of  peace,  was  destined  to  become, 
under  the  stress  of  circumstances,  the  chief  advocate  of  war. 

We  have  already  had  occasion  to  mention  the  fact  that  Corinth 
was  far  more  successful  than  other  Greek  states  in  keeping  her 
colonies  in  a  state  of  dependence.     The  chain  of  cities  which  she 


264  GREECE 

439-435   B.C. 

had  founded  along  the  western  coast  of  Greece  was_,  with  one  ex- 
ception, retained  under  her  power.  Ambracia,  Leucas,  Anactorium, 
and  the  other  colonies  were  united  by  a  close  alliance  to  their 
mother-city;  they  formed  a  commercial  union  whose  currency  was 
interchangeable,  and  a  political  confederacy  whose  resources  were 
always  used  in  common.  Corinth  was  the  managing  partner  in 
the  alliance,  and  her  colonies  were  content  to  follow  her  guidance. 
But  to  the  north  of  the  other  Corinthian  cities  lay  one  colony 
which  had  always  taken  a  different  line.  Corcyra  had  from  her 
first  foundation  been  hostile  to  her  mother-city.  After  a  severe 
struggle  she  had  made  herself  independent  in  the  seventh  century; 
the  tyrant  Periander  had  once  reduced  her  to  obedience,  but  after  his 
death  she  had  again  torn  herself  free  from  the  Corinthian  alliance. 
Lying  as  she  did  full  in  the  course  of  the  trade  route  from  Corinth 
to  Tarentum  and  Syracuse,  she  was  frequently  able  to  interfere  with 
the  commerce  of  her  mother-country,  and  used  her  power  to  the 
full.  It  was  not  unnatural,  then,  that  Corinth  and  Corcyra  were 
bitter  enemies. 

On  the  Illyrian  shore,  some  distance  to  the  north,  lay  the  town 
of  Epidamnus,  better  known  in  later  days  as  Dyrhachium.  The 
Corcyraeans  had  founded  the  place,  but  in  accordance  with  the  uni- 
versal usage  of  Greece  had  taken  a  Corinthian,  the  Heracleid  Pha- 
llus, as  the  official  oekist  of  the  settlement.  Epidamnus  was  in  435 
B.C.  engaged  in  one  of  those  fierce  civil  wars  between  the  oligarchy 
and  the  democracy  to  which  every  Greek  state  was  liable.  The  popu- 
lace finally  expelled  their  opponents,  who  took  refuge  with  the 
neighboring  Illyrian  tribe  of  the  Taulantii,  and  stirred  them  up  to 
attack  the  city.  Being  cooped  up  within  their  walls  by  the  bar- 
barians, and  prevented  from  cultivating  their  territory,  the  Epi- 
damnian  democrats  were  reduced  to  great  straits ;  accordingly  they 
made  application  for  help  to  the  Corcyraeans,  as  their  nearest  neigh- 
bors and  kinsmen.  The  Corcyraean  government,  however,  refused 
to  interfere  in  the  party  quarrel,  and  would  not  grant  assistance. 
It  then  occurred  to  the  Epidamnians  that  they  were  connected  with 
Corinth  also,  from  the  fact  that  their  oekist  had  been  a  Corinthian. 
Accordingly  they  sent  an  embassy  to  beg  from  the  mother-city  for 
the  aid  which  they  had  been  unable  to  obtain  from  the  daughter. 
The  Corintliians  were  delighted  to  have  the  opportunity  of  doing 
Corcyra  an  ill  turn,  by  obtaining  her  nearest  neighbor  as  an  ally, 
and  extending  their  influence  up  the  Illyrian  Gulf.     If  Epidamnus 


SPARTA     AND    ATHENS  265 

435-434  B.C. 

were  included  in  their  commercial  league,  the  harm  that  Corcyra 
could  do  them  would  be  much  diminished.  Accordingly  they  re- 
ceived the  Epidamnian  ambassadors  with  effusion,  and  promised 
them  prompt  assistance.  Not  only  did  they  equip  a  small  fleet,  and 
place  on  board  of  it  a  garrison  for  Epidamnus,  but  they  invited 
emigrants  to  come  forward  to  reinforce  the  thinned  population  of 
the  place,  and  guaranteed  them  the  protection  of  Corinth.  This 
expedition  reached  Epidamnus,  and  greatly  strengthened  its  power 
of  resistance;  but  at  the  same  time  it  called  down  on  the  town  the 
wrath  of  Corcyra.  The  Corcyraeans  were  indignant  that  Corinth 
should  trespass  in  waters  which  they  considered  to  be  their  own, 
and  resolved  to  put  an  end  to  the  alliance  of  Corinth  and  Epidamnus 
by  force.  Accordingly  they  sent  a  fleet  of  forty  ships  to  blockade 
the  town  from  the  side  of  the  sea,  and  entered  into  an  alliance  with 
the  Epidamnian  oligarchs  and  the  Taulantii,  who  were  besieging 
it  on  land. 

This  action  on  the  part  of  Corcyra  was  certain  to  lead  to  open 
war.  The  Corinthians  took  up  the  challenge,  equipped  thirty  ships 
of  their  own,  called  out  contingents  from  their  Leucadian  and 
Ambraciot  colonists,  and  obtained  aid  also  from  Megara,  whose 
citizens — debarred  by  Athens  from  eastern  trade — were  eager  to 
find  new  outlets  to  the  west.  Late  in  the  year  435  B.C.  a  combined 
fleet  of  seventy-five  galleys,  under  the  Corinthian  Aristeus,  set  sail 
to  raise  the  blockade  of  Epidamnus.  They  were  met  off  the  prom- 
ontory of  Actium  by  eight  Corcyraean  vessels,  who  completely  de- 
feated them,  with  the  loss  of  fifteen  ships.  On  the  same  day  Epi- 
damnus surrendered,  the  native  population  consenting  to  receive 
back  their  exiled  oligarchy,  while  the  Corinthian  garrison  were  made 
prisoners  of  war. 

This  check  caused  the  wildest  wrath  at  Corinth,  and  extensive 
preparations  were  at  once  set  on  foot  to  repair  the  disaster.  The 
Corinthians  spent  the  whole  of  434  B.C.  in  strengthening  and  equip- 
ping their  fleet,  and  by  the  spring  of  the  next  year  had  ninety 
galleys  ready  for  sea.  They  bade  their  subject  allies  follow  their 
example,  and  raised  thirty-eight  ships  from  them.  This  arma- 
ment, strengthened  by  a  dozen  Megarian  and  ten  Eleian  vessels, 
composed  a  fleet  which  Corcyra  could  not  hope  to  withstand,  al- 
though she  was  accounted  the  second  naval  power  of  Greece,  and 
owned  not  less  than  a  hundred  and  twenty  triremes. 

The  Corcyraeans  had  up  to  this  moment  held  themselves  aloof 


266  GREECE 

433  B.C. 

from  Grecian  politics;  not  even  such  a  crisis  as  the  invasion  of 
Xerxes  had  been  able  to  induce  them  to  interest  themselves  in  any- 
thing that  went  on  to  the  east  of  Cape  Malea.  But  when  they 
had  drawn  upon  themselves  such  a  storm  as  was  now  impending, 
they  were  constrained  to  look  around  for  allies.  All  the  naval  states 
of  Western  Greece  were  leagued  with  Corinth ;  their  Italiot  neigh- 
bors across  the  sea  had  no  war-fleets  of  importance.  Nowhere 
could  they  discover  any  power  except  Athens  which  could  afford 
them  the  help  they  needed.  After  many  searchings  of  heart,  and 
with  great  reluctance,  the  Corcyraeans  resolved  to  apply  to  be  ad- 
mitted into  the  alliance  of  Athens,  although  they  thereby  sacrificed 
the  complete  independence  which  had  hitherto  been  their  pride.  In 
the  early  spring  of  433  B.C.  they  dispatched  envoys  to  solicit  the 
conclusion  of  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance.  The  moment 
that  the  news  of  this  move  arrived  at  Corinth,  the  government  of 
that  city  sent  a  counter-embassy  to  persuade  the  Athenians  to  refuse 
the  petition  of  their  enemies.  Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  on  the  day 
on  which  the  Corcyraean  ambassadors  appeared  before  the  Ecclesia 
with  their  propositions,  the  Corinthians  were  also  present  to  set 
forth  the  arguments  against  the  conclusion  of  the  alliance. 

Thucydides  has  preserved  for  us  the  substance  of  the  speeches 
made  by  the  rival  envoys  on  this  occasion ;  though  expressed  in 
his  own  language,  they  fairly  represent  the  arguments  employed 
during  the  debate,  at  which  the  historian  himself  was  probably 
present.  The  Corcyraeans  appealed  entirely  to  the  self-interest  of 
Athens;  they  acknowledged  that  they  had  no  moral  claim  for  her 
assistance,  but  pointed  out  that  they  possessed  the  second  largest 
navy  in  Greece,  and  that,  if  they  w^ere  allowed  to  fall  under  the 
power  of  Corinth,  that  navy  might  at  any  time  be  turned  against 
Athens.  They  declared  that  war  between  Athens  and  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  alliance,  of  which  Corinth  was  such  a  prominent  member, 
was  certain  to  break  out  ere  long,  and  asked  whether  it  was  better 
that  the  Corcyraean  fleet  should  be  found  on  that  day  on  the  side 
of  Athens,  or  on  that  of  her  enemies.  As  to  the  idea  that  the  con- 
clusion of  an  alliance  with  themselves  would  bring  on  an  imme- 
diate war  with  Corinth  and  Sparta,  they  declared  that  the  reverse 
would  be  the  case;  for  the  Athenian  and  Corcyraean  navies,  if 
united,  would  be  so  powerful  that  the  Peloponnesians  would  not 
dare  to  attack  them. 

While  the  Corcyraeans  spoke  of  profit  and  expediency,   the 


SPARTA     A  N  D    A  T  H  E  N  S  i^6T 

433  B.C. 

Corinthian  envoys  in  their  reply  took  a  higher  tone.  They  pointed 
out  that  Corcyra  had  always  pursued  a  selfish  and  false  policy, 
that  she  had  been  equally  careless  of  the  common  interests  of  Greece 
and  of  the  respect  due  to  her  mother-city,  and  that  in  the  case  of 
Epidamnus  she  had  been  actuated  by  mean  jealousy.  If  any  state 
might  make  an  appeal  for  the  friendship  of  Athens,  it  was  Corinth, 
who  had  not  only  done  her  good  services  in  past  days/  but  had 
only  a  few  years  before  restrained  Sparta  from  declaring  war  at  the 
moment  of  the  revolt  of  Samos.  On  that  occasion  Corinth  had 
vindicated  the  rights  of  every  sovereign  state  to  punish  its  own  sub- 
ject allies,  and  now  she  expected  that  Athens  would  do  as  much 
for  her.  If  the  treaty  which  the  Corcyraeans  desired  was  now  con- 
cluded, there  would  be  full  precedent  for  the  Peloponnesian  alliance 
helping  the  next  member  of  the  Delian  Confederacy  that  revolted. 
As  to  the  plea  that  war  was  inevitable,  and  that  even  if  Corcyra  did 
not  furnish  a  casus  belli  some  other  must,  ere  long,  arise,  they 
declared  that  unless  iVthens  provoked  them  they  had  no  intention 
of  attacking  her,  and  that  the  majority  of  the  members  of  the 
Peloponnesian  alliance  were  of  the  same  mind. 

After  the  ambassadors  had  spoken,  Athenian  orators  took  up 
the  debate,  which  was  protracted  far  into  the  second  day.  It  vvas 
the  speech  of  Pericles  which  decided  the  vote  of  the  Ecclesia ;  the 
great  statesman  had  fully  made  up  his  mind  that  war  must  come 
sooner  or  later,  and  threw  his  weight  on  to  the  side  of  the  Cor- 
cyraeans. In  accordance  with  his  advice  a  defensive  alliance  was 
concluded  with  them,  which  bound  Athens  to  lend  them  her  help 
if  they  were  attacked.  As  an  earnest  of  the  protection  which  was 
thereby  granted,  Lacedaemonius.  the  son  of  the  great  Cimon,  was 
sent  with  a  small  squadron  of  ten  ships  to  cruise  in  Corcyraean 
waters. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Athens  put  herself  in  the  wrong 
by  this  action.  The  treaty  with  Corcyra  was  virtually  a  declaration 
of  war  on  Corinth,  whose  fleet  was  just  about  to  sail  against  that 
city.  Of  all  the  allies  of  Sparta.  Corinth  deserved  the  best  treat- 
ment from  Athens,  and  was  the  state  which  could  be  most  easily 
conciliated,  for  the  lines  of  Corinthian  and  Athenian  commerce  did 
not  cross  each  other  to  any  great  extent.  Even  if  war  was  really  in- 
evitable, it  was  not  worth  while  to  precipitate  it  by  high-handed  ac- 

1  As,  for  example,  during  the  invasion  of  Attica  by  Cleomenes  in  509,  and 
the  Aeginetan  war  of  489. 


268  GREECE 

433  B.C. 

tion  which  obviously  broke  the  spirit  of  the  Thirty  Years'  Truce.  Nor 
was  Corcyra  an  ally  whose  past  history  gave  much  promise  of  fu- 
ture good  faith ;  she  had  always  played  a  purely  selfish  game,  and 
as  a  matter  of  fact  gave  Athens  very  little  assistance  in  the  coming 
struggle.  During  the  twenty-eight  years  of  the  war  not  a  single 
Corcyraean  galley  rounded  Cape  Malea  to  help  Athens  in  her  strug- 
gle to  maintain  the  empire  of  the  Aegean. 

Though  fully  aware  of  the  meaning  of  the  new  treaty,  Corinth 
persisted  in  her  intention  of  chastising  her  undutiful  daughter-city. 
A  few  days  after  the  ten  Athenian  ships  under  Lacedaemonius  had 
reached  Corcyra,  the  approach  of  the  Corinthian  fleet  was  signaled. 
Now  that  all  its  reinforcements  had  come  in,  from  Megara,  Leucas, 
and  elsewhere,  the  armament  mustered  one  hundred  and  fifty  sail; 
the  Corcyraeans  put  out  to  meet  it  with  one  hundred  and  ten  ves- 
sels. With  them  sailed  Lacedaemonius  and  his  ten  ships ;  but  the 
Athenian  commander  had  determined  to  take  no  active  part  in 
the  coming  fight  unless  compelled,  for  he  was  under  orders  not  to 
attack  the  Corinthians,  and  only  to  resist  if  circumstances  com- 
pelled him.  The  fleets  met  off  the  coast  of  Epirus,  at  the  island 
of  Sybota,  and  battle  was  joined  along  the  whole  line,  except  at 
the  extreme  left  flank  of  the  Corcyraean  squadron,  where  the  ten 
Athenian  ships  kept  maneuvering  without  coming  to  close  quarters. 
After  a  hard  fight,  carried  on  with  more  courage  than  naval  skill, 
the  Corinthian  right  wing  broke  through  the  opposing  line,  and, 
although  the  Corcyraeans  had  some  advantage  at  other  points, 
decided  the  fate  of  the  battle.  More  than  half  of  the  Corycraean 
fleet  was  sunk,  taken,  or  disabled;  and  Lacedaemonius.  who  only 
took  an  active  part  in  the  fight  when  his  allies  w^ere  already  beaten, 
could  not  do  much  to  protect  their  retreat.  After  pausing  to  re- 
arrange their  disordered  line  of  battle  and  to  capture  or  slay  the 
crews  of  the  disabled  Corcyraean  ships,  the  Corinthians  came  on 
for  a  second  attack,  that  must  have  been  fatal  to  the  defeated  fleet, 
which  did  not  now  muster  more  than  fifty  or  sixty  seaworthy  ships. 
But  after  advancing  to  within  a  short  distance  of  the  enemy,  the 
victorious  squadron  was  suddenly  seen  to  back  water,  go  about, 
and  retreat  down  the  Epirot  coast.  The  cause  of  this  maneuver 
was  the  sudden  appearance  of  a  second  Athenian  squadron,  which 
had  been  sent  out  to  reinforce  Lacedaemonius.  It  mustered  only 
twenty  ships,  but  the  Corinthians  took  them  for  the  mere  vanguard 
of  a  large  fleet,  and  cautiously  drew  back.     When  the  newcomers 


SPARTA     AND    ATHENS  269 

433  B.C. 

had  joined  the  Corycraean  fleet,  the  Corinthian  admiral  sent  out  an 
ofiicer  in  a  small  boat  to  denounce  the  conduct  of  the  Athenian  com- 
mander, and  to  ask  him  whether  he  was  intending  to  break  the 
peace  existing  between  Corinth  and  Athens.  Lacedaemonius  an- 
swered that  he  was  not  about  to  begin  offensive  hostilities,  but 
intended  to  protect  Corcyra.  Thereupon  the  Corinthian,  resolved 
not  to  precipitate  a  general  war  by  hasty  action,  gave  orders  for 
his  armament  to  steer  homeward.  Before  starting  he  set  up  a 
trophy  on  the  Epirot  coast  as  a  testimony  to  his  victory  in  the  battle ; 
the  Corcyraeans  also,  we  learn  to  our  surprise,  claimed  a  success 
because  their  enemies  had  retired,  and  set  up  another  trophy  on  the 
southernmost  headland  of  their  island.  Except  the  capture  of  a 
thousand  prisoners  from  the  conquered  fleet,  the  Corinthians  had 
made  no  gain  from  their  carefully  prepared  expedition. 

The  battle  of  Sybota  made  war  between  Athens  and  the 
Peloponnesian  alliance  practically  certain,  but  the  movements  of 
Sparta  were  so  slow  that  events  were  allowed  to  develop  themselves 
for  some  months  before  the  actual  rupture  came.  The  chief  interest 
during  this  period  lay  in  a  series  of  events  which  took  place  in  the 
northwestern  Aegean.  Perdiccas,  King  of  Macedonia,  the  suc- 
cessor of  that  Alexander  who  took  part  in  the  invasion  of  Xerxes, 
had  for  some  time  been  at  variance  with  Athens.  He  endeavored 
to  harm  her  by  inducing  the  tributary  cities  of  Chalcidice  to  revolt. 
Among  the  most  important  of  these  places  was  Potidaea,  a 
Corinthian  colony,  which,  in  spite  of  its  membership  in  the  Delian 
Confederacy,  was  still  so  closely  connected  with  its  mother-country 
as  to  receive  its  annual  magistrates  from  her.  The  Potidaeans 
were  induced  to  lend  a  favorable  ear  to  the  proposals  of  Perdiccas 
by  the  encouragement  which  they  received  from  Corinth.  To 
revenge  the  Corcyraean  treaty  the  Corinthians  were  ready  to  molest 
Athens  in  any  way  they  could ;  and  secretly  prepared  an  expedition 
of  two  thousand  men,  under  their  favorite  general  Aristeus. 
When  this  force  arrived  at  Potidaea  the  town  openly  revolted,  as 
did  many  of  the  smaller  places  in  the  neighborhood.  However, 
an  Athenian  force  which  was  then  operating  against  Perdiccas  was 
at  once  diverted  against  the  rebel  towns.  In  a  battle  fought  in  front 
of  the  walls  of  Potidaea  the  Athenians  were  victorious,  though 
their  general,  Callias,  was  slain.  They  then  laid  siege  to  the  town ; 
but  it  had  been  amply  provisioned  in  preparation  for  the  revolt, 
and  proved  able  to  resist  for  many  months. 


270  GREECE 

432  B.C. 

Athens  and  Corinth  were  now  virtually  at  war,  though  no  open 
declaration  of  hostilities  had  yet  been  published.  Before  definitely 
committing  herself  to  the  struggle,  Corinth  had  determined  to  make 
certain  of  the  assistance  of  Sparta,  her  ancient  protector.  The 
Spartans  had  long  been  contemplating  the  approach  of  war,  and 
were  not  unprepared  for  the  appeal  of  their  allies.  Late  in  the  year 
432  B.C.  the  ephors  allowed  the  Corinthians  to  set  forth  their 
grievances  before  a  meeting  of  the  Apella.  The  Megarians  and 
other  states  who  were  at  odds  with  Athens  also  appeared  to  make 
their  wrongs  known.  The  general  drift  of  all  the  speeches  was  the 
same:  Athens  had  become  haughty  and  high-handed;  she  was  an 
intolerably  bad  neighbor,  whose  one  aim  was  to  reduce  and  im- 
poverish every  state  which  was  not  numbered  among  her  subject 
allies ;  the  empire  which  she  had  built  up  was  kept  together  in  viola- 
tion of  the  natural  law  which  made  autonomy  the  sacred  right  of 
every  Hellenic  community;  if  her  restless  activity  were  not  checked, 
the  liberty  of  Greece  was  in  danger.  Some  Athenian  ambassadors, 
who  chanced  to  be  in  Sparta  on  another  mission,  spoke  before  the 
Apella  in  defense  of  the  conduct  of  their  country ;  but  they  could 
not  deny  the  charge  which  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  accusations — 
the  fact  that  Athens  had  turned  her  hegemony  over  the  states  of 
the  Aegean  into  an  imperial  dominion,  where  no  pretense  was  made 
of  granting  her  allies  a  share  in  the  control  of  affairs.  The  Spartan 
king,  Archidamus,  also  spoke  against  an  immediate  declaration  of 
war,  on  the  ground  that  the  Peloponnesian  states  were  as  yet  ill- 
prepared  for  a  struggle  with  an  enemy  whose  main  power  lay  on 
the  sea.  But  the  large  majority  of  the  Spartans  had  long  made  up 
their  minds ;  their  opinion  was  curtly  stated  by  the  ephor  Sthene- 
lai'das,  when  he  told  the  assembly  "  they  must  not  suffer  the  Athe- 
nians to  become  any  greater,  nor  sit  still  when  their  allies  were  be- 
ing wronged,  but  march  with  the  aid  of  the  gods  against  these 
wrongdoers."  So  certain  was  Sthenelai'das  of  the  numerical  su- 
periority of  his  party,  that  he  actually  took  the  step,  unheard  of 
before,  of  bidding  the  assembly  divide,  instead  of  merely  listening 
to  its  tumultuous  cries  of  assent  or  dissent.^  As  he  had  foreseen, 
an  enormous  majority  voted  in  favor  of  war. 

A  formal  congress  of  all  the  allies  of  Sparta  was  then  held,  to 
ratify  the  decision  of  the  Apella.  It  was  well  known  that  the 
greater  part  of  the  states  were  quite  ready  to  follow  the  lead  of 

2  See  p.  64,  as  to  the  voting  in  the  Spartan  assembly. 


SPARTA    AND    ATHENS  271 

432  B.C. 

their  suzerain.  Many  places  besides  Corinth,  Megara,  and  Thebes 
had  their  own  private  grudges  against  Athens ;  EHs,  Epidaurus,  and 
Phhus,  for  example,  had  been  interested  in  the  success  of  the  cam- 
paign against  Corcyra,  to  whose  expenses  they  had  contributed. 
The  Arcadian  tribes  were  always  ready  for  war  which  gave  a 
promise  of  plunder,  and  yet  was  never  likely  to  extend  to  the  neigh- 
borhood of  their  own  inland  mountains.  Accordingly  the  congress 
of  allies  proceeded  to  confirm  the  decision  of  the  Spartan  assembly; 
if  any  votes  were  given  in  favor  of  peace,  they  were  so  unimportant 
that  no  record  of  them  has  been  preserved. 

Two  diplomatic  episodes  occurred  before  the  actual  outbreak 
of  hostilities.  The  Spartans  first  sent  a  message  designed  to 
shake  the  credit  of  Pericles  with  the  more  superstitious  of  his 
fellow  citizens.  It  bade  the  Athenians,  in  the  old  formula, 
"  expel  the  accursed  family  of  the  Alcmaeonidae."  To  this  no 
reply  w-as  made  except  by  a  contemptuous  tu  quoque,  in  which 
the  Spartans  were  told  to  "  expiate  the  pollution  they  had  brought 
on  themselves  by  the  starving  of  Pausanias  in  the  temple  of  Athene, 
and  by  putting  to  death  certain  Helots  who  had  taken  refuge  in  the 
sanctuary  of  Taenarum." 

The  Peloponnesian  alliance  then  presented  a  peremptory  note 
to  Athens  which  contained  three  points.  It  required  that  the 
decrees  against  the  Megarians  should  be  repealed,  that  Aegina 
should  be  restored  to  her  autonomy,  and  that  the  blockade  of  Poti- 
daea  should  be  raised.  The  first  demand  was  one  which  might 
possibly  have  been  granted;  but  the  last  two  struck  at  the  whole 
principle  of  the  Athenian  naval  dominion,  bidding  Athens  permit 
secessions  from  the  Confederacy  of  Delos — a  proceeding  which 
her  conduct  in  the  cases  of  Naxos,  Thasos,  and  Samos  showed  that 
she  would  never  suffer.  Naturally  the  demands  were  refused.  A 
few  days  after  the  Spartans  sent  in  an  ultimatum,  couched  in  the 
form  of  a  demand  that  Athens  should  "  restore  their  autonomy  to 
the  states  of  Greece."  The  Spartan  ambassadors  who  came  as 
bearers  of  the  ultimatum  expected  a  peremptory  refusal  of  these 
demands,  and  must  have  been  somewhat  surprised  when  the  Athe- 
nian peace  party  proved  strong  enough  to  raise  a  lively  debate  in 
the  Ecclesia,  for  the  purpose  of  taking  the  three  points  into  con- 
sideration. 

During  the  seven  or  eight  months  which  had  elapsed  since  the 
battle  of  Sybota,  the  power  of  Pericles  had  been  suffering  a  tem- 


272 


GREECE 


432    B.C. 

porary  eclipse.  Now  that  war  had  become  certain,  all  the  classes 
which  were  likely  to  suffer  from  it  felt  ill-disposed  towards  the 
statesman  whose  advice  had  brought  it  on.  The  ill  will  shown 
against  Pericles  was  so  general  that  his  enemies  thought  that  a 
favorable  opportunity  had  arrived  for  molesting  him.  Their  at- 
tacks took  the  form  of  accusations  against  his  friends  and  con- 
fidants.    The  philosopher  x\naxagoras  was  accused  of  impiety,  and 


the  sculptor  Pheidias  of  embezzlement,  merely  because  they  were 
honored  with  the  friendship  of  Pericles.  The  former  was  obliged 
to  leave  Athens,  the  latter — though  he  successfully  proved  by  the 
test  of  the  scales  that  he  had  not  made  away  with  any  of  the  gold 
which  had  been  given  him  for  the  statue  of  Athene  Parthenos — 
was  retained  in  prison  on  another  charge.  He  had  introduced  por- 
traits of  Pericles  and  himself  among  the  ancient  heroes  represented 


SPARTA     AND     ATHENS  273 

432  B.C. 

in  the  "  metopes  *'  of  the  Parthenon,  and  this  was  imputed  to  him  as 
sacrilege.  Before  his  second  trial  the  unfortunate  sculptor  died  in 
prison.  The  musician  Damon,  an  intimate  friend  of  Pericles  since 
his  youth,  was  accused  of  having  spoken  in  favor  of  tyranny  as  a 
form  of  government,  and  suffered  ostracism.  A  fourth  attack  was 
aimed  at  a  personage  still  nearer  and  dearer  to  Pericles.  The  great 
statesman  had  been  unhappy  in  his  married  life,  and  after  divorcing 
his  wife  had  been  living  in  a  connection  not  allowed  by  the  tie  of 
wedlock  with  a  Milesian  lady  named  Aspasia.  The  equivocal  posi- 
tion of  the  mistress  of  Pericles  made  her  an  easy  mark  for  slander, 
and  she  was  indicted  for  impiety  and  evil-living.  When  she  ap- 
peared before  the  dicastery,  Pericles  for  once  broke  through  his 
habitual  reserve,  and  appeared  in  court  to  plead  the  cause  of  As- 
pasia. His  biographers  relate  that  during  his  oration  he  was  seen 
to  shed  tears,  for  the  first  time  on  record  during  his  public  life: 
his  evident  emotion  had  its  effect,  and  the  trial  resulted  in  a  verdict 
of  acquittal. 

At  the  moment  that  the  Spartan  ambassadors  appeared  in 
Athens  to  lay  their  ultimatum  before  the  Ecclesia,  the  discontent 
felt  against  Pericles  was  still  high,  and  it  was  this  fact  that  led  to 
the  discussion  of  the  three  points.  But  after  many  speeches  had 
been  made,  Pericles  was  able  once  more  to  assert  his  mastery  over 
the  assembly.  He  showed  clearly  enough  that  it  was  not  the  Me- 
garian  decrees  or  the  siege  of  Potidaea  that  were  the  real  causes  of 
the  hostility  of  the  Peloponnesians.  The  true  reason  for  the  hatred 
which  Sparta  felt  towards  Athens  was  her  jealousy  at  the  formation 
of  the  Athenian  empire,  which  so  much  overshadowed  her  own 
local  preeminence  in  Peloponnesus.  The  Corinthians  and  other 
maritime  allies  of  Sparta  were  envious  of  the  commercial  prosperity 
of  Athens.  Neither  Sparta  nor  her  allies  would  ever  be  satisfied 
as  long  as  the  Confederacy  of  Delos  continued  to  exist ;  if  the  three 
points  now  brought  forward  were  conceded,  it  would  only  cause  the 
appearance  of  another  and  more  stringent  set  of  demands.  The 
force  of  these  arguments  was  soon  felt ;  it  was  recognized  that  for 
the  last  year  war  had  been  inevitable,  and  the  Spartan  ambassadors 
were  sent  back  with  the  refusal  that  they  had  expected. 

A  few  days  later  the  actual  outbreak  of  hostilities  occurred, 
apparently  in  the  month  of  March,  431  B.  c. 


B 


Chapter   XXVII 

EARLY    YEARS    OF    PELOPONNESIAN    WAR, 
431-429  B.C. 

EFORE  passing  on  to  describe  the  opening  of  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  war,  it  will  not  be  out  of  place  to  recapitulate  the 
resources    of    the    two    confederacies    which    were    pitted 
against  each  other. 

The  Spartans  had  enlisted  in  their  cause  the  full  force  of  their 
Peloponnesian  allies ;  that  is,  they  were  supported  by  Elis,  Corinth, 
Sicyon,  all  the  Arcadian  states,  Epidaurus,  Hermione,  Troezen,  and 
Phlius :  all  the  peninsula,  in  fact — except  Argos  and  Achaia,  which 
remained  neutral — was  ranked  on  their  side.  Outside  the  Isthmus 
they  could  count  on  the  zealous  assistance  of  Megara  and  the 
Boeotian  League,  while  the  Phocians,  the  Locrians,  and  the  Cor- 
inthian colonies  along  the  Acarnanian  coast  were  also  numbered 
among  their  allies.  Every  one  of  these  powers  could  put  a  con- 
siderable body  of  hoplites  in  the  field,  and  the  Boeotians  and 
Locrians  could  supply  cavalry  also.  If  the  whole  army  of  the 
alliance  could  have  been  mustered  for  a  great  battle,  it  would  have 
amounted  to  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  foot,  with  perhaps  two 
thousand  horse.  But  great  battles  on  shore  were  very  rare  during 
the  Peloponnesian  war,  and  no  such  force  was  ever  engaged  at  one 
time  during  the  whole  twenty-seven  years  of  its  course.  By  sea 
the  Spartan  alliance  was  comparatively  weak ;  except  Corinth  there 
was  no  first-class  maritime  power  included  in  it.  But  Sicyon  and 
Megara  were  each  possessed  of  some  scores  of  galleys,  and  Elis, 
Epidaurus,  and  even  Sparta  and  the  Boeotian  League  were  not 
entirely  without  war  vessels.  It  was  not,  however,  in  numbers 
alone  that  the  allies  of  Sparta  felt  themselves  weak  at  sea ;  the 
morale  and  the  training  of  their  seamen  were  equally  deficient. 
Their  officers  were  unaccustomed  to  the  management  of  a  large 
fleet;  their  crews,  except  the  Corinthians,  had  no  recent  experience 
of  naval  war.  Moreover,  the  Athenian  navy  had  developed  in  the 
last  forty  years  a  new  system  of  tactics  and  maneuvers,  while  their 
enemies  were  still  employing  the  same  methods  which  had  served  at 

274 


PELOPONNESIAN    WAR  275 

431   B.C. 

Salamis.  The  old  school  of  seamen  had  been  accustomed  to  lay 
their  vessels  alongside  of  the  enemy,  and  then  to  allow  the  hoplites 
and  light  troops  on  board  to  fight  the  matter  out.  The  Athenians 
had  altogether  abandoned  these  tactics ;  they  had  cut  down  the  num- 
ber of  marines  whom  a  vessel  carried,  and  trusted  almost  entirely 
to  ramming.  Their  system  was  to  secure  by  rapid  and  skillful 
maneuvering  a  favorable  moment  to  drive  their  galley's  beak  into 
the  enemy's  side,  or  to  crush  into  and  disable  his  long  projecting 
line  of  oars.  The  Peloponnesian  had  no  conception  of  any  other 
way  of  conquering  his  enemy  than  by  grappling  with  him,  while 
the  Athenian  loved  a  running  fight,  avoided  close  grips,  and  trusted 
to  a  rapid  and  unexpected  charge.  With  these  tactics  the  old-fash- 
ioned seamen  of  Corinth  or  Megara  were  at  first  utterly  unable  to 
cope.  They  knew  their  inferiority,  and  refused  to  engage  unless 
they  found  themselves  in  largely  superior  force. 

Next  to  its  acknowledged  inferiority  at  sea,  the  greatest  w^eak- 
ness  of  the  Spartan  confederacy  lay  in  its  financial  poverty.  Sparta 
herself  possessed  no  monetary  resources,  and  among  her  allies 
Corinth  and  Thebes  alone  had  any  accumulated  wealth.  The  rest 
were  "  ready  enough  with  their  persons,  but  not  at  all  ready  with 
their  purses."  ^  So  obvious  was  the  financial  difficulty  of  maintain- 
ing the  war  that,  even  before  hostilities  had  begun,  proposals  were 
made  that  the  league  should  borrow  money  from  the  temple  treas- 
uries  of  Olympia  and  Delphi — a  course  which  those  who  made  it 
would  have  been  the  first  to  denounce  as  sacrilege  had  it  been 
brought  forward  on  any  other  occasion.  Thus  it  came  to  pass  that 
Sparta  could  summon  a  very  large  army  into  the  field  for  five  or 
six  weeks,  but  could  not  keep  permanently  on  foot  more  than  a  few 
thousand  men,  for  sheer  want  of  money  to  pay  them.  She  and  her 
allies  were  invincible  for  a  single  battle  or  a  frontier  raid,  but  com- 
paratively helpless  in  carrying  on  a  prolonged  campaign. 

The  position  of  Athens  was  very  different.  On  land  she  had 
few  allies;  her  trusty  neighbors  at  Plataea,  her  dependents  the 
Messenians  of  Naupactus,  and  the  Acarnanians,  who  joined  her 
because  of  their  perpetual  feuds  with  their  Corinthian  neighbors  of 
Leucas  and  Ambracia,  were  the  only  friends  on  whom  she  could 
thoroughly  rely.  Corcyra,  of  course,  was  enlisted  on  her  side, 
but  proved  of  little  assistance.  Some  of  the  Thessalian  cities  also 
had  concluded  alliances  with  her,  but  their  forces  never  took  the 

1  Thuc.  i.  141. 


276  GREECE 

431    B.C. 

field  in  her  favor,  and  they  practically  remained  neutral  in  the  war. 
Her  own  military  resources  were  very  considerable,  amounting-  to 
twelve  hundred  horsemen  and  thirteen  thousand  hoplites  fit  to  take 
the  field,  besides  sixteen  thousand  more — men  past  the  prime  of  life 
or  resident  aliens — who  were  available  only  for  garrison  duty  at 
home. 

The  Athenian  fleet  ready  for  sea  amounted  to  not  less  than 
three  hundred  galleys  in  the  highest  state  of  efficiency,  and  the  well- 
stored  arsenal  of  Peiraeus  was  able  to  equip  a  yet  larger  number. 
The  two  Asiatic  islands  which  still  maintained  a  war  navy — Lesbos 
and  Chios — could  reinforce  their  suzerain  with  a  considerable 
squadron.  With  this  exception  the  Confederacy  of  Delos  con- 
tributed no  naval  or  military  assistance.  The  states  which  com- 
posed it  had  long  ceased  to  maintain  a  fleet,  while  it  would  seem 
that  Athens  accounted  their  hoplites  as  too  wanting  in  spirit  or 
loyalty  to  make  it  worth  her  while  to  call  them  out  in  large  num- 
bers. At  any  rate,  Ionian  troops  were  scarcely  ever  brought  across 
the  Aegean  to  reinforce  the  Athenian  army  for  a  campaign  in 
Europe. 

The  finances  of  Athens  were  in  the  most  flourishing  condition. 
She  was  enjoying  an  average  annual  revenue  of  about  a  thousand 
talents,  of  which  six  hundred  consisted  of  the  tribute  of  the  Con- 
federacy of  Delos,  while  the  rest  was  obtained  from  various  forms 
or  domestic  taxation.  Moreover,  she  possessed  a  large  accumular 
tion  of  hoarded  wealth.  Of  the  surplus  of  the  tribute-money  six 
thousand  talents  were  lying  in  the  Acropolis  ready  for  instant  use. 
This  great  treasure  had  a  few  years  before  amounted  to  as  much 
as  nine  thousand  seven  hundred  talents,  but  the  lavish  expenditure 
of  Pericles  for  the  adornment  of  Athens,  together  with  the  cost  of 
the  siege  of  Potidaea,  had  decreased  it  by  more  than  a  third. 

In  considering  the  relative  strength  of  Sparta  and  Athens, 
there  was  another  element,  no  less  important  than  their  military 
and  financial  resources,  to  be  taken  into  account.  This  was  the 
feeling  and  disposition  of  their  respective  allies.  Here  Sparta  had 
the  advantage ;  the  greater  part  of  the  members  of  her  alliance 
had  an  active  dislike  and  fear  of  Athens,  and  looked  upon  the  war 
against  her  as  a  crusade  in  favor  of  that  "  autonomy  "  which  every 
Greek  valued  so  highly.  Among  the  subjects  of  Athens  no  such 
feeling  against  Sparta  existed.  The  members  of  the  Confederacy 
of  Delos  had  long  ceased  to  look  upon  their  connection  with  Athens 


PELOPONNESIAN    WAR  277 

431    B.C. 

as  an  advantage.  It  was  only  the  fear  of  sharing  the  fate  of  Thasos 
or  Samos  that  kept  them  quiet ;  if  that  fear  could  be  removed,  they 
were  for  the  most  part  ready  to  secede.  The  victory  of  Athens 
over  Sparta  could  bring  them  no  advantage,  while  the  continuance 
of  the  war  might  very  possibly  cause  a  diminution  of  trade  and  an 
increase  of  taxation.  Of  active  hatred  for  specific  acts  of  misgov- 
emment  on  the  part  of  Athens  there  was  little ;  but.  on  the  other 
hand,  the  yearning  after  autonomy  was  always  present,  to  make 
them  long  for  the  break-up  of  the  empire  of  their  suzerain.  The 
allies  of  Athens,  therefore,  were  at  the  best  passive  supporters,  and 
might  easily  be  turned  into  rebels  if  the  hardships  of  war  bore 
heavily  upon  them,  of  if  a  fair  chance  of  recovering  their  freedom 
was  presented  to  them.  The  chief  guarantee  for  fidelity  was  merely 
the  fact  that  they  were  cut  off  from  Sparta  by  an  expanse  of  sea, 
and  that  while  the  Athenian  fleet  was  undisputedly  supreme  they 
could  not  hope  to  obtain  aid  for  a  rebellion. 

The  first  blood  shed  in  the  struggle  was  spilled  in  Boeotia.  Be- 
fore the  final  declaration  of  war  had  taken  place,  while  men  were 
still  awaiting  it,  the  Thebans  made  a  treacherous  attempt  to  seize 
Plataea.  That  town,  like  every  Greek  state,  owned  a  discontented 
faction  within  its  walls.  The  majority  being  attached  to  Athens, 
the  minority  were  partisans  of  the  Boeotian  League.  They  entered 
into  correspondence  with  the  Theban  government,  and  undertook 
to  betray  their  city  by  opening  one  of  its  gates  on  the  evening  of  a 
festival.  On  a  night  of  wind  and  rain  in  March,  three  hundred 
Theban  hoplites  stole  beneath  the  walls  of  Plataea,  while  the  whole 
force  of  the  city  followed  them  some  miles  behind.  The  traitors 
admitted  the  advanced  guard,  who  marched  into  the  market-place 
and  drew  themselves  up  there,  sounding  their  trumpets  and  bidding 
their  herald  proclaim  that  all  true  Boeotians  should  take  arms  and 
join  them.  But  the  oligarchic  party  in  Plataea  was  not  numerous, 
and  the  Thebans,  instead  of  seizing  the  prominent  men  of  the  city, 
remained  quietly  waiting  for  their  reinforcements  to  come  up. 
Unluckily  the  showers  of  the  night  had  caused  the  river  Asopus  to 
rise,  and  the  main  Theban  army  was  detained  beyond  it,  vainly 
seeking  for  a  ford.  The  Plataeans,  who  had  awakened  at  midnight 
to  find  their  city  betrayed,  were  at  first  in  despair;  but  after  a  time 
they  perceived  that  their  enemies  were  but  a  handful,  and  plucked 
up  courage.  They  mustered  in  the  side  lanes,  clapped  to  the  gates, 
and  barricaded  the  issues  from  the  market-place.     In  the  dusk  of 


278  GREECE 

431    B.C. 

the  dawn  a  desperate  street  fight  took  place,  when  the  Thebans  per- 
ceived that  they  were  entrapped,  and  strove  to  cut  their  way  out. 
A  few  escaped  by  a  postern  gate,  many  were  slain,  but  the  majority 
were  driven  into  a  large  granary,  whence  there  was  no  exit,  and 
forced  to  lay  down  their  arms.  Some  hours  afterwards,  when  all 
their  countrymen  were  taken  or  slain,  the  Theban  army  appeared 
before  the  walls. 

Finding  that  they  were  too  late,  the  Theban  generals  at  once 
laid  hands  on  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  country-side,  and  held  them 
as  securities  for  the  lives  of  their  captured  friends.  The  Plataeans 
then  sent  out  a  herald  to  upbraid  their  neighbors  for  their  treach- 
erous attack,  and  threatened  to  put  their  prisoners  to  death  if  the 
hostages  w^ere  not  given  up  and  the  Plataean  territory  evacuated. 
Accordingly  the  Thebans  released  the  persons  they  had  seized,  and 
returned  home  across  the  border.  The  Plataeans  drove  off  their 
cattle  into  Attica,  brought  all  their  movable  property  into  the  city, 
and  then,  with  a  cruel  and  delil^erate  breach  of  faith,  slew  their 
prisoners,  to  the  number  of  nearly  two  hundred.  Thus  with 
treachery,  perjury,  and  deliberate  massacre,  in  which  it  is  difficult 
to  blame  one  party  more  than  the  other,  commenced  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  war. 

When  the  first  news  of  the  attack  on  Plataea  reached  Athens, 
the  strategi  had  set  off  at  once  to  beg  their  allies  to  keep  their 
prisoners  safe,  as  a  means  of  bringing  pressure  to  bear  on  Thebes. 
The  news  of  the  massacre  caused  much  discontent,  but  nothing 
could  be  done  to  repair  the  crime.  War  was  now  actually  begun ; 
accordingly  the  frontier  forts  were  put  in  a  state  of  defense,  the 
flocks  and  herds  of  Attica  placed  in  safety  across  the  water,  in 
Salamis  or  Euboea,  and  the  inhabitants  received  warning  that  they 
would  soon  have  to  take  refuge  within  the  walls  of  the  city.  From 
Plataea  the  women  and  children  were  removed,  and  only  a  small 
garrison  of  four  hundred  citizens  and  eighty  Athenians  remained 
behind  to  man  the  ramparts. 

The  impending  storm  soon  broke  over  Attica.  A  few  weeks 
after  the  attempt  on  Plataea,  the  whole  armed  force  of  Pelopon- 
nesus mustered  at  the  Isthmus,  and  set  out  on  its  march  north- 
ward. Every  state  had  sent  two-thirds  of  its  hoplites,  and  the 
whole  amounted  to  some  seventy  or  eighty  thousand  men.  Arch- 
idamus,  King  of  Sparta,  though  originally  an  opponent  of  the  war, 
had  been  placed   in  command.     After  being  joined  by  the  con- 


PELOPONNESIAN    WAR  279 

431    B.C. 

tingents  of  Boeotia,  he  halted  on  the  Attic  frontier,  and  sent  for- 
ward an  ambassador  named  Melesippus  to  offer  the  Athenians  one 
final  chance  of  submission  before  war  was  let  loose  upon  them. 
But  on  the  motion  of  Pericles,  the  Ecclesia  refused  the  envoy  a 
hearing,  and  sent  him  back  under  guard  to  the  frontier.  When  he 
was  dismissed  by  his  escort,  the  Spartan  took  leave  of  them  with  the 
solemn  words,  "  This  day  will  be  the  beginning  of  great  evils  for 
Greece,"  and  returned  to  the  camp  of  Archidamus. 

The  Spartan  king  had  calculated  that  the  approach  of  an  ir- 
resistible army  would  humble  the  spirit  of  the  Athenians,  and  that 
when  they  saw  that  the  ravaging  of  Attica  was  about  to  begin,  they 
would  offer  terms  of  peace.  He  was  so  far  right  that  there  was  a 
large  party  which  looked  with  dismay  on  the  prospect  of  an  invasion, 
and  the  ruin  of  their  country-side  which  must  follow.  But  the 
landed  interest  at  Athens  was  much  less  powerful  than  the  com- 
mercial, and  Pericles  had  succeeded  in  persuading  the  merchants, 
capitalists,  and  shipmasters  of  Athens  that  the  war  would  bring 
them  no  great  loss.  He  had  from  the  first  foreseen  that,  in  the 
case  of  invasion,  the  open  country  of  Attica  must  be  evacuated,  and 
abandoned  to  the  enemy.  He  had  familiarized  his  followers  with 
the  idea,  and  when  the  invasion  took  place,  the  terror  on  which 
Archidamus  reckoned  had  long  been  discounted.  Some  days  before 
the  Spartan  army  arrived  the  Athenian  proprietors  had  retired 
within  the  walls  of  the  city,  taking  with  them  their  families,  their 
slaves,  and  all  their  household  goods.  There  was  nothing  left  but 
empty  farmsteads  for  the  enemy  to  destroy. 

After  making  an  ineffectual  attempt  to  storm  the  frontier  fort 
of  Oenoe,  Archidamus  descended  from  the  spurs  of  Cithaeron  into 
the  plain  of  Eleusis,  and  began  to  burn  and  harry  the  land  in  the 
most  systematic  manner.  It  was  now  early  June,  and  crops  and 
fruits  were  well  advanced  towards  maturity.  The  Peloponnesians 
spread  over  the  face  of  the  country,  beat  down  the  corn,  felled  the 
orchards  and  olive  groves,  and  burned  the  deserted  farms  and  villas. 
Working  steadily  south,  they  crossed  Mount  Aegialeus,  entered  the 
plain  of  Athens,  and  encamped  hard  by  Acharnae,  the  richest  and 
most  populous  of  the  Attic  demes.  When  the  smoke  of  the  burn- 
ing town  was  blown  towards  the  walls  of  Athens,  and  the  bands  of 
plunderers  were  seen  scattered  like  locusts  over  the  plain,  there  was 
great  excitement  in  the  city.  Forgetful  of  their  inferior  numbers, 
the  Athenians  longed  to  leave  the  shelter  of  the  city  and  fall  on  the 


280  GREECE 

431    B.C. 

invaders.  The  hoplites  of  Acharnae,  and  its  neighborhood,  who 
numbered  three  thousand  spears,  demanded  a  sortie.  Groups  of 
armed  men  mustered  at  the  gates,  and  it  required  all  the  personal 
influence  of  Pericles  to  prevent  the  excited  multitude  from  rushing 
out  to  court  a  certain  defeat.  It  was  the  firm  resolve  of  the  great 
statesman  to  avoid  all  fighting  in  the  open  field,  but  he  found  a  vent 
for  the  feelings  of  his  fellow-citizens  by  planning  two  naval 
expeditions.  One  consisting  of  thirty  triremes  sailed  up  the 
Euripus,  and  made  predatory  descents  on  the  coast  of  Boeotia  and 
Locris.  The  other,  mustering  not  less  than  a  hundred  ships,  and 
carrying  a  thousand  hoplites  for  land  service,  coasted  round 
Peloponnesus,  and  did  all  the  harm  possible  to  the  seaboard  of 
Laconia,  Messenia,  and  Elis.  Then  it  was  joined  by  fifty  Cor- 
cyraean  galleys,  and  passed  up  the  coast  of  Acarnania,  harrying  the 
Corinthian  colonies  in  that  quarter.  The  presence  of  this  powerful 
fleet  in  Western  waters  drew  over  to  the  Athenian  alliance  the  four 
cities  of  Cephallenia,  which  had  hitherto  remained  neutral. 

After  remaining  forty  days  in  Attica,  Archidamus  drew  off  his 
army  from  the  wasted  land,  and  returned  to  Peloponnesus.  The 
moment  that  he  was  gone  Pericles  sallied  out  from  Athens  with 
thirteen  thousand  men,  marched  into  the  Megarid,  and  paid  off 
on  the  villages  and  farms  of  the  Megarians  all  the  ravages  that 
Attica  had  been  suffering  during  the  last  six  weeks.  This  destruc- 
tive visit  was  regularly  repeated  every  autumn  during  the  first 
eleven  years  of  the  war ;  sometimes  the  Athenians  even  supple- 
mented it  by  an  additional  raid  in  the  spring. 

The  events  of  the  first  year  of  the  war  made  plain  to  everyone 
what  had  hitherto  been  suspected  by  few — the  fact  that  under  ex- 
isting conditions  the  struggle  must  be  prolonged  indefinitely,  for 
neither  party  had  shown  the  power  to  strike  an  effective  blow 
against  its  enemy.  If  the  Athenians  refused  to  meet  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  army  in  the  open  field,  and  acquiesced  in  the  abandonment 
of  their  home  territory,  there  was  no  means  of  bringing  pressure 
on  them.  The  Spartans  could  not  dream  of  besieging  the  vast 
circuit  of  the  city  and  its  maritime  suburbs ;  the  walls  were  too 
strong  for  the  siege  artillery  of  those  days,  and  the  sea  was  always 
open  for  the  supply  of  new  resources.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Athenians  had  almost  as  little  power  to  coerce  the  Peloponnesians ; 
no  amount  of  ravagings  of  the  Megarid  or  hasty  descents  on  the 
coast  of  Laconia  would  appreciably  affect  the  policy  of  an  inland 


PELOPONNESIAN    WAR  281 

431    B.C. 

state  like  Sparta.  Acute  misery  might  be  inflicted  on  the  mer- 
cantile classes  in  Corinth  or  the  farmers  of  the  Eleian  seaboard, 
but  their  sufferings  would  not  disturb  the  stolid  Lacedaemonian. 
Unless  one  side  or  the  other  found  some  more  effective  way  of 
harming  its  enemy,  the  war  might  go  on  forever.  Pericles  had 
long  foreseen  that  Sparta's  ability  to  harm  Athens  was  confined  to 
the  power  of  wasting  Attica,  and  had  made  up  his  mind  that  after 
some  years  of  ineffectual  effort  the  enemy  would  be  reduced  to  sue 
for  peace.  But  he  calculated  that  the  struggle  would  be  long,  and 
as  a  measure  of  precaution  induced  the  Ecclesia  to  vote  that  a 
thousand  talents  out  of  the  treasures  in  the  Parthenon  should  be 
put  aside  as  a  reserve  fund,  only  to  be  used  in  the  event  of  an  attack 
on  Athens  by  sea.  With  a  similar  object,  a  hundred  triremes  fully 
manned  were  always  to  be  kept  in  home  waters.  The  Spartans  had 
not  been  so  prescient  as  Pericles,  and  the  utter  failure  of  their  first 
attack  in  bringing  pressure  to  bear  on  Athens  caused  much  dis- 
content. It  was  obvious  that  some  new  method  of  coercing  the 
enemy  must  be  found,  unless  the  war  was  to  last  forever. 

Among  the  other  events  of  the  first  year  of  the  war  was  the 
expulsion  from  their  native  island  of  the  Aeginetans.  Aegina  had 
been  an  unwilling  member  of  the  Confederacy  of  Delos  since  her 
conquest  in  456  B.C.,  but  her  chief  men  were  known  to  be  in  cor- 
respondence with  Sparta,  and  Pericles  dreaded  the  possible  results 
of  having  a  city  ripe  for  revolt  at  the  very  gates  of  Athens.  As 
long  as  Aegina  was  held  by  disaffected  allies,  it  remained  "  the  eye- 
sore of  Peiraeus,"  and  the  Athenians  now  took  the  cruel  and  high- 
handed step  of  deporting  its  whole  population.  As  Aegina  had  not 
justified  this  arbitrary  action  by  an  open  revolt,  much  indignation 
was  felt  throughout  Greece  at  seeing  an  ancient  and  famous  city 
destroyed,  merely  to  ease  the  suspicions  of  a  jealous  suzerain. 
The  Spartans  granted  to  the  expelled  inhabitants  the  land  of  Thyre- 
atis  on  their  northern  border,  close  to  the  frontier  of  Argolis. 

At  the  end  of  the  campaigning  season  of  431  B.C.  the  Athe- 
nians held  a  solemn  funeral  celebration  in  honor  of  those  citizens 
who  had  fallen  in  the  numerous,  if  unimportant,  skirmishes  of  the 
year.  The  oration  in  honor  of  the  departed  was  spoken  by  Peri- 
cles; it  was  accounted  the  highest  flight  of  his  eloquence,  and  con- 
tained, besides  its  ostensible  purport,  a  lofty  panegyric  on  the  social 
and  political  life  of  Athens. 

When  the  spring  of  430  B.C.  arrived    the  Peloponnesian  con- 


282  G  R  E  E  C  E 

430    B.C. 

federates  prepared  to  repeat  their  incursion  into  Attica.  The  second 
year  of  the  war  might  have  been  as  uneventful  as  the  first,  if  a 
great  national  calamity  had  not  intervened  to  make  it  memorable. 
The  army  of  Archidamus  had  hardly  crossed  the  frontier,  and  the 
hosts  of  fugitive  country-folk  had  only  just  taken  refuge  within 
the  walls  of  Athens,  when  the  plague  broke  out  in  the  city.  There 
ensued  a  fearful  outbreak  of  pestilence,  comparable  in  the  fierceness 
of  its  ravages,  though  not  in  their  extent,  to  the  Black  Death  of 
1348  or  the  London  Plague  of  1665,  and  far  more  dreadful  than 
any  of  the  visitations  of  cholera  which  our  own  times  have  known. 
The  infection  is  said  to  have  originated  in  Egypt,  and  to  have 
been  brought  westward  by  merchants  from  inner  Asia,  where  pesti- 
lence is  almost  always  raging.  It  might,  however,  have  passed 
Athens  by,  if  everything  there  had  not  been  prepared  to  make  a 
disastrous  outbreak  easy.  The  city  was  crowded  with  refugees 
living  in  the  most  wretched  and  unsanitary  condition.  They  had 
quartered  themselves  as  best  they  could  in  the  towers  of  the  fortifi- 
cations ;  the  space  betw^een  the  Long  Walls  was  crowded  with  them ; 
every  open  square  was  crammed,  and  even  such  temples  as  were  not 
kept  locked  up.  They  dwelt  in  booths  and  tents,  even  (we  are 
told)  in  tubs,  without  any  possible  provision  for  cleanliness  or 
comfort,  and  depending  on  a  scanty  and  polluted  water  supply.  In 
the  heat  of  a  stifling  June,  the  filth  and  overcrowding  had  prepared 
the  way  for  the  pestilence.  The  moment  that  the  infection  was 
introduced  it  spread  like  wildfire.  Thucydides  has  given  a  detailed 
account  of  the  symptoms  of  this  plague,  which  show  it  to  have  been 
a  kind  of  eruptive  typhoid  fever.  After  seven  or  nine  days  of  suf- 
fering, the  victims,  covered  with  pustules  and  racked  with  continual 
vomiting  and  unquenchable  thirst,  sank  into  their  graves.  Re- 
coveries, though  not  infrequent  (Thucydides  himself  survived  an 
attack),  were  few  in  comparison  to  the  deaths.  Hence  the  earliest 
symptoms  of  the  disease  brought  on  a  state  of  reckless  despair 
which  led  to  much  unnecessary  loss  of  life.  The  physicians  had 
nearly  all  fallen  victims,  and  when  all  human  skill  was  found  un- 
availing, a  selfish  panic  set  in.  Many  refused  to  pay  the  least  at- 
tention to  the  sufferings  of  their  nearest  relatives,  and  left  them 
to  perish  untended.  Moreover,  under  the  moral  and  physical  strain 
of  the  epidemic,  the  restraints  of  social  order  broke  down,  and  men 
abandoned  themselves  to  all  manner  of  excess  and  debauchery. 
Crime  and  riot  ran  wild  through  the  streets,  while  unburied  corpses 


PERICLES 
CrM-irii    499    B.  c.      Died    429    B.  c.) 

Dust   III   llic   I'liticiiu    Muscuin.   Rome 


P  E  L  O  P  O  N  N  E  S  I  A  N    W  A  R  283 

430   B.C. 

lay  in  every  corner  and  crossway.  The  cemeteries  were  ghastly 
sights;  funeral  trains  might  be  seen  fighting  with  each  other  for 
the  possession  of  a  pyre,  and  when  a  burning  had  begun  the  at- 
tendants fled,  leaving  the  body  half-charred,  to  pollute  the  neighbor- 
ing air. 

At  least  a  quarter  of  tlie  population  of  Athens  perished  in  this 
horrible  calamity,  nor  were  its  ravages  confined  to  the  city  alone. 
The  plague  dogged  the  steps  of  two  considerable  expeditions  which 
Pericles  sent  out  to  relieve  the  overcrowded  city.  A  force  of  four 
thousand  men,  dispatched  on  shipboard  to  ravage  the  coasts  of 
Troezen  and  Epidaurus,  suffered  heavily.  The  army  lying  before 
Potidaea — which  was  still  holding  out,  though  now  in  the  twenty- 
fifth  month  of  its  siege — caught  the  infection  from  reinforcements 
which  arrived  from  Athens,  and  fifteen  hundred  hoplites  died  in 
the  camp.  It  was  not  till  the  approach  of  winter  that  the  death- 
rate  began  to  diminish. 

By  an  unreasoning  but  not  unnatural  impulse,  many  of  the 
Athenians  looked  on  Pericles,  the  author  of  the  war,  as  responsible 
for  the  calamities  of  his  country.  In  expression  of  the  feeling  of 
the  mob,  the  demagogue  Cleon  actually  brought  a  charge  of  pecu- 
lation against  the  great  minister,  and,  to  mark  their  anger,  the 
Dicastery  found  him  guilty  of  the  preposterous  charge.  A  vote 
of  the  Ecclesia  even  ordered  the  dispatch  of  envoys  to  Sparta,  to 
sue  for  peace.  This  was,  of  course,  refused  by  the  enemy,  and  the 
Athenians  gradually  came  round  again  to  their  old  policy,  and 
again  elected  Pericles  as  strategus.  The  plague  had  left  the  rest 
of  Greece  almost  untouched ;  nowhere  were  the  conditions  so  favor- 
able for  its  spread  as  at  Athens,  and  the  mortality  in  the  few  places 
in  which  it  appeared  was  therefore  small.  The  Peloponnesians 
were  able  to  harry  Attica  in  June  and  July  without  catching  the 
infection,  and  carried  their  incursions  into  every  nook  and  corner 
of  the  land  that  had  been  left  unvisited  in  the  previous  year. 

In  the  autumn  of  430  B.C.,  after  the  Athenian  fleets  had  gone 
hom.e,  a  considerable  Peloponnesian  squadron  collected  at  Corinth, 
and  ventured  out  into  the  Ionian  Sea;  but,  though  mustering  a 
hundred  ships,  it  did  no  more  than  execute  a  hasty  descent  on 
Zacyntlius,  and  then  returned  into  the  gulf.  A  more  efficient 
method  of  harming  Athens  than  such  a  timid  excursion  was  devised 
in  the  same  year  by  the  Peloponnesians;  they  determined  to  endeavor 
to  make  an  alliance  v/ith  the  Great  King;  and  to  obtain  from  him 


284  GREECE 

430    B.C. 

Persian  gold  to  supplement  their  own  slender  resources,  Aristeus 
the  Corinthian  and  five  others  set  out  to  make  the  long  land- 
journey  to  Asia  which  the  preponderance  of  Athens  at  sea  rendered 
necessary.  On  their  way  the  envoys  passed  through  Thrace,  where 
reigned  Sitalkes,  a  firm  ally  of  Athens.  Apprised  of  their  arrival 
in  his  dominions,  the  barbarian  king  laid  hands  on  them,  and  made 
them  over  to  the  Athenian  envoy  at  his  court.  They  were  for- 
warded to  Athens,  and  there  put  to  death  without  a  trial.  This 
cold-blooded  execution  of  non-combatants  exasperated  the  Pelo- 
ponnesians  to  the  highest  pitch  of  fury,  all  the  more  because 
Aristeus  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  officers  of  their  whole 
confederacy.  The  justification  which  the  Athenians  gave  of  their 
conduct  was  that  the  crews  of  several  merchant  vessels,  which  had 
been  taken  by  Peloponnesian  privateers,  had  suffered  massacre : 
it  was  suspected  that  their  real  reason  was  personal  hatred  for 
Aristeus,  arising  from  the  trouble  he  had  given  them  at  Potidaea. 
A  few  months  after  the  death  of  Aristeus,  the  town  which  he 
had  induced  to  revolt  fell  into  the  hands  of  its  enemies.  Potidaea 
had  now  been  under  siege  for  about  thirty  months,  and  all  its 
magazines  had  been  exhausted.  The  walls  were  still  intact,  but 
there  was  hardly  a  crumb  of  food  left  in  the  city:  we  are  told 
that  some  of  the  inhabitants  had  even  been  reduced  to  feed  on  the 
bodies  of  the  dead.  Seeing  that  there  was  no  hope  of  help  from 
Peloponnesus,  the  Potidaean  leaders  at  last  proposed  a  surrender. 
The  Athenian  generals,  Xenophon  and  Hestiodorus,  wishing  to 
spare  their  army  the  hardships  of  another  winter  in  the  trenches, 
granted  easy  terms,  on  condition  that  the  surrender  should  take 
place  at  once.  Accordingly  the  Potidaeans,  their  families,  and 
their  Corinthian  auxiliaries  were  permitted  to  depart  whither  they 
chose,  though  no  individual  was  to  take  with  him  more  than  a 
single  change  of  raiment  and  a  fixed  sum  of  money.  The  Athenian 
assembly  was  much  discontented  with  this  capitulation ;  they  bore  a 
heavy  grudge  against  the  Potidaeans,  as  one  of  the  causes  of  the 
war,  and  had  been  looking  forward  to  wreaking  their  vengeance 
on  them  when  the  long-expected  surrender  took  place.  A  few 
weeks  more  of  blockade,  as  was  very  justly  observed,  would  have 
compelled  Potidaea  to  surrender  at  discretion,  and  placed  all  her 
inhabitants  at  the  mercy  of  the  besiegers,  to  be  slain  or  sold  as 
slaves.  More  than  two  thousand  talents  had  been  spent  on  the 
siege,  and  many  lives  had  been  lost  in  the  trenches;  we  cannot, 


PELOPONNESIANWAR  285 

429   B.C. 

therefore,  wonder  that  Xenophon  and  his  colleagues  were  severely 
censured  by  the  home  government.  The  fall  of  Potidaea  was  the 
last  military  event  of  430  B.C.,  and  must  have  occurred  in  the  late 
autumn  of  that  year. 

The  third  year  of  the  war  opened  with  an  event  destined  to 
exercise  the  greatest  influence  on  the  policy  of  Athens.  In  the 
early  summer  of  429  B.C.,  two  years  and  six  months  after  the  out- 
break of  the  war,  Pericles  died.  The  great  statesman  was  struck 
down  by  the  plague,  which  had  reappeared  with  the  hot  weather. 
Although  he  recovered  from  the  attack,  he  was  left  too  weak  to 
rally,  and  sank  into  his  grave  from  sheer  weakness  a  few  weeks 
after.  Since  the  previous  year  he  had  not  been  the  same  man. 
The  plague  had  carried  off  his  two  sons,  his  sister,  and  most  of 
his  intimate  friends.  After  the  death  of  his  younger  son,  Paralus, 
he  shut  himself  up  in  his  house,  and  was  with  difficulty  induced  to 
come  abroad,  or  to  take  an  interest  in  public  business.  The  in- 
gratitude of  the  people,  which  had  resulted  in  his  trial  and  con- 
demnation on  the  charge  of  Cleon,  must  have  added  to  his  weariness 
of  life.  But  down  to  the  last  he  maintained  his  ascendency  over 
the  Ecclesia.  Just  before  he  died  the  Athenians  gave  him  a  signal 
proof  of  their  renewed  confidence.  The  death  of  his  sons  having 
left  him  without  an  heir,  the  revulsion  of  feeling  which  succeeded 
to  their  momentary  anger  took  the  form  of  a  decree  of  the  Ecclesia, 
which  legitimatized  a  natural  son  whom  Aspasia  had  borne  to  him. 
This  youth,  who  bore  the  same  name  as  his  father,  was  reserved 
for  a  stirring  career  and  an  unhappy  end. 

Pericles  viewed  his  approaching  end  with  philosophic  calm. 
As  he  lay  dying,  his  surviving  friends  spoke  by  his  bedside  of  the 
great  achievements  of  his  life.  They  thought  him  far  gone  beyond 
the  power  of  hearing  and  speech;  but  he  presently  raised  himself 
and  said,  "  I  marvel  that  you  so  dwell  upon  and  praise  these  acts 
of  mine.  Fortune  had  her  share  in  them,  and  many  other  generals 
have  done  more.  But  you  take  no  notice  of  that  which  is  my  real 
pride,  that  no  Athenian  ever  wore  mourning  through  me." 


Chapter  XXVIII 

SIEGE  OF  PLATAEA,  429-427  B.C. 

THE  death  of  Pericles  deprived  the  Athenian  democracy 
of  the  one  guiding  spirit  whom  it  was  accustomed  to 
obey,  and  left  it  exposed  to  the  varying  impulses  of  half 
a  dozen  statesmen  of  second-rate  ability.  As  long  as  Pericles 
lived,  the  war  had  been  conducted  towards  a  definite  end  on  one 
simple  and  rigid  plan.  Sparta  was  to  be  wearied  out,  not  struck 
down;  therefore  all  action  on  land  was  to  be  avoided,  all  distant 
and  hazardous  enterprises  eschewed ;  the  forces  of  Athens  were  to 
be  kept  in  hand,  and  devoted  solely  to  preserving  her  supremacy  at 
sea,  and  preventing  any  communication  between  her  enemy  and  her 
discontented  subject  allies  across  the  Aegean.  After  a  time — prob- 
ably a  very  considerable  time,  but  still  one  whose  coming  was 
inevitable — the  Peloponnesian  confederacy  would  despair  at  its  in- 
ability to  harm  Athens,  would  tire  of  seeing  its  commercial  navy 
kept  under  perpetual  blockade  and  its  coast-land  exposed  to  the 
constant  descents  of  an  enemy  who  eluded  any  counter-blow. 
Sparta's  allies,  if  not  Sparta  herself,  would  then  sue  for  peace,  and 
Athens  would  be  left  with  her  empire  unimpaired,  beyond  all  con- 
tradiction the  strongest  state  in  Greece. 

The  policy  of  Pericles,  if  it  could  have  been  consistently 
carried  out,  would  probably  have  proved  efficacious;  but  it  was  a 
policy  particularly  hard  to  enforce  in  a  democratic  state.  We 
may,  indeed,  say  that  no  statesman  save  the  one  who  had  for  so 
long  exerted  the  influence  of  his  master-mind  on  the  Ecclesia 
could  possibly  have  put  it  in  practice.  It  involved  the  constant 
exercise  of  tenacity  and  self-restraint,  the  two  virtues  in  which  a 
democratic  assembly  is  notoriously  wanting.  It  often  exacted  the 
neglect  of  tempting  opportunities  for  action  on  land,  or  promising 
expeditions  to  distant  regions ;  it  gave  few  opportunities  for  dis- 
tinction to  the  ambitious  military  men  in  whom  the  state  abounded ; 
it  brought  the  most  cruel  suffering  on  the  agricultural  classes  of 
Attica,  who  were  compelled  to  give  up  their  farms  year  by  year  to 

286 


P  L  A  T  A  E  A  287 

429  B.C. 

be  ravaged  by  the  invader.  Hence  it  was  certain  that,  when  the 
gfuiding  hand  of  Pericles  was  removed,  the  Ecclesia  would  be 
driven  by  anger,  fear,  or  ambition  into  abandoning  the  narrow  line 
of  policy  which  he  had  marked  out  for  it.  We  shall  soon  be  able 
to  trace  the  results  of  his  removal,  by  noting  the  increasing  scope 
and  variety  of  the  efforts  of  Athens  during  the  few  succeeding 
years. 

The  Peloponnesian  army,  which  marched  up  from  the  Isthmus 
about  the  time  of  the  death  of  Pericles  (June,  429?),  did  not  repeat 
the  ravages  of  the  two  preceding  years.  King  Archidamus  this 
time  left  Attica  untouched — perhaps  the  renewed  outbreak  of  the 
plague  in  Athens  frightened  him — and  turned  northward  to  strike 
at  a  smaller  prey.  Plataea  had  for  the  last  two  years  been 
deserted  by  its  inhabitants,  and  contained  only  a  small  garrison  of 
some  five  hundred  men.  To  oblige  his  Boeotian  allies,  Archi- 
damus had  determined  to  dislodge  this  outpost  of  Athenian  power. 
When  his  army  sat  down  before  their  walls,  the  Plataeans  protested 
that  half  a  century  before  Pausanias  the  Spartan,  after  his  great 
victory  over  the  Persians,  had  pronounced  the  soil  of  Plataea 
hallowed  ground,  and  guaranteed  its  perpetual  autonomy.  They 
therefore  begged  Archidamus  to  remember  this  sacred  obligation, 
and  to  withdraw  his  forces.  The  king  replied  by  an  offer  to  leave 
them  unmolested,  if  they  would  become  allies  of  Sparta,  or  even  if 
they  would  renounce  their  alliance  with  Athens  and  stand  neutral  in 
the  war.  To  this  the  Plataeans  answered  that  as  their  families  and 
their  goods  had  been  removed  to  Athens,  and  were  in  the  custody  of 
their  allies,  they  were  not  free  agents ;  but  that,  if  they  were  per- 
mitted, they  would  send  an  envoy  to  beg  from  the  Athenian  Ecclesia 
leave  to  become  neutrals.  Archidamus  then  made  a  very  liberal 
offer;  he  promised  to  allow  the  Plataeans  to  depart,  after  handing 
over  the  town  and  district  to  the  custody  of  Sparta,  together  with 
a  list  of  all  the  buildings,  orchards,  plantations,  and  so  forth  con- 
tained therein.  They  should  be  held  in  trust  during  the  continu- 
ance of  the  war,  kept  in  good  order,  and  restored  to  the  Plataeans 
on  the  conclusion  of  a  general  peace.  He  was  even  ready  to 
guarantee  an  allowance  to  the  exiled  citizens  from  the  proceeds  of 
the  cultivation  of  their  land. 

The  proposal  tempted  the  Plataeans  sorely,  but  they  again 
required  permission  to  communicate  with  Athens.  Archidamus 
granted  leave,  and  messengers  went  forth  from  the  city,  only  to 


288  GREECE 

429  B.C. 

return  with  the  answer  that  "  Athens  never  deserted  her  alHes, 
and  would  not  now  neglect  the  Plataeans,  but  succor  them  with 
all  her  might.  Wherefore  the  alliance  must  stand,  and  the  attack 
of  the  Spartans  be  withstood."  Accordingly  the  proposals  of 
Archidamus  were  rejected,  and  the  siege  began. 

After  running  a  continuous  line  of  palisades  around  the  little 
town,  the  Spartans  commenced  to  throw  up  a  mound  against  one 
portion  of  the  wall,  intending  to  raise  it  until  it  filled  up  the  ditch 
and  rose  level  with  the  battlements,  so  as  to  furnish  a  path  into 
the  city.  To  foil  this  design,  the  Plataeans  kept  raising  the  height 
of  the  wall  as  the  mound  grew,  and,  when  this  proved  an  inadequate 
defense,  pierced  through  the  lower  course  of  their  ramparts  and  ran 
a  tunnel  into  the  interior  of  the  mound.  Through  this  tunnel  they 
removed  the  earth  in  such  quantities  that  the  mound  kept  crumb- 
ling and  sinking  in.  The  Spartans,  however,  foiled  this  method  of 
defense  by  heaping  on  the  mound,  not  loose  mold,  but  crates  and 
hurdles  tightly  wedged  up  with  clay.  Finding  themselves  in  im- 
minent danger,  the  Plataeans  next  built  a  crescent-shaped  wall  in 
rear  of  the  threatened  point  with  materials  taken  from  the  deserted 
houses  of  the  city.  When,  therefore,  the  mound  had  accomplished 
its  purpose,  the  Spartans  found  themselves  in  front  of  a  second 
line  of  wall.  They  then  vainly  attempted  to  set  fire  to  the  town. 
When  this  expedient  also  failed,  the  season  was  so  far  advanced  that 
Archidamus  gave  up  all  hope  of  capturing  Plataea  in  the  current 
year.  He  resolved  to  turn  the  siege  into  a  blockade,  and  to  dismiss 
the  greater  part  of  his  army  homewards.  Accordingly  he  sur- 
rounded the  city  with  carefully  planned  lines  of  circumvallation, 
consisting  of  two  substantial  walls  of  unbaked  brick,  with  towers 
at  regular  intervals ;  they  faced,  the  one  inward  and  the  other  out- 
ward, in  case  any  attempts  might  be  made  by  the  Athenians  to  raise 
the  blockade.  In  front  of  each  of  the  faces  lay  a  ditch,  while  the 
space  between  the  two  walls  provided  dwelling-space  for  the  troops. 
Leaving  a  force,  consisting  half  of  Boeotians  and  half  of  Pelo- 
ponnesians,  to  maintain  these  lines,  Archidamus  marched  back  to 
Corinth  with  the  bulk  of  his  army. 

During  the  summer,  while  the  army  of  Archidamus  remained 
in  Boeotia,  the  Athenians  had  kept  within  the  walls.  But  it  is 
surprising  to  find  that,  when  the  main  body  of  the  enemy  had  de- 
parted, they  made  no  attempt  to  relieve  Plataea,  in  spite  of  the 
solemn  assurances  of  assistance  which  they  had  given  to  its  inhabi- 


P  L  A  T  A  E  A  289 

429  B.C. 

tants  at  the  time  of  the  negotiations  with  Archidamus.  But  in  the 
whole  of  429  B.C.  the  Athenians  made  no  expeditions  near  home ; 
the  mihtary  interest  of  the  year  is  centered  entirely  in  operations 
in  the  distant  land  of  Acarnania, 

At  the  same  time  that  Archidamus  laid  siege  to  Plataea,,  a 
small  Peloponnesian  expedition  under  a  Spartan  officer  named 
Chemus  had  crossed  the  mouth  of  the  Gulf  of  Corinth,  and  joined 
the  land  forces  of  the  Leucadians  and  Ambraciots.  They  were 
bent  on  conquering  the  Acarnanians  and  the  ]\Iessenians  of  Nau- 
pactus,  the  only  continental  allies  whom  Athens  possessed  in 
Western  Greece.  A  long  feud  had  existed  between  the  Corinthian 
colonists  on  the  shore  and  the  Acarnanian  and  Amphilochian  high- 
landers  of  the  inland ;  the  former  were  continually  encroaching  on 
the  territory  of  the  latter,  and  had  of  late  brought  matters  to  a  head 
by  seizing  Argos,  the  capital  of  the  Amphilochian  tribe.  It  was 
owing  to  this  local  quarrel,  and  not  to  any  love  for  Athens,  that 
the  Acarnanians  are  found  enrolled  in  the  Athenian  alliance. 
When  Cnemus  had  been  joined  by  the  troops  of  Leucas  and  the 
other  Corinthian  towns,  and  had  further  strengthened  himself  by 
summoning  to  his  standard  a  number  of  the  predatory  barbarian 
tribes  of  Epirus,  he  advanced  on  Stratus,  the  chief  city  of  Acarna- 
nia. At  the  same  time  a  squadron  of  Peloponnesian  ships  collected 
at  Corinth,  and  set  sail  down  the  gulf  towards  Naupactus.  The 
only  Athenian  force  in  these  waters  consisted  of  twenty  galleys 
under  an  able  officer  named  Phormio,  who  was  cruising  off  the 
straits  of  Rhium,  to  protect  Naupactus  and  blockade  the  Corinthian 
Gulf. 

Both  by  land  and  by  sea  the  operations  of  the  Peloponnesians 
miscarried  miserably.  Cnemus  collected  a  very  considerable  army, 
but  as  he  sent  his  men  forward  to  attack  Stratus  by  three  separate 
roads  he  exposed  them  to  defeat  in  detail.  His  center,  composed 
of  his  Epirot  auxiliaries,  was  routed  by  the  Stratians,  and  the 
Greek  troops  on  either  flank  were  then  compelled  to  retire  without 
having  struck  a  blow.  By  sea  the  defeat  of  the  Peloponnesians 
was  even  more  disgraceful;  the  Corinthian  admirals  Machaon  and 
Isocrates  were  so  scared,  when  they  came  across  the  squadron  of 
Phormio  at  the  mouth  of  the  gulf,  that,  although  they  mustered 
forty-seven  ships  to  his  twenty,  they  took  up  the  defensive.  Hud- 
dling together  in  a  circle,  they  shrank  from  his  attack  and  allowed 
themselves  to  be  hustled  and  worried  into  the  Achaian  harbor  of 


290  GREECE 

429    B.C. 

Patrae,  losing  several  ships  in  their  flight.  Presently  reinforce- 
ments arrived;  the  Peloponnesian  fleet  was  raised  to  no  less  than 
seventy-seven  vessels,  and  three  Spartan  officers  were  sent  on 
board,  to  compel  the  Corinthian  admirals,  who  had  behaved  so 
badly,  to  do  their  best  in  future.  The  whole  squadron  then  set 
out  to  hunt  down  Phormio.  They  found  him  with  his  twenty 
ships  coasting  along  the  Aetolian  shore  towards  Naupactus,  and  at 
once  set  out  in  pursuit.  The  long  chase  separated  the  larger  fleet 
into  scattered  knots,  and  gave  the  fighting  a  disconnected  and 
irregular  character.  While  the  rear  ships  of  Phormio's  squadron 
were  compelled  to  run  on  shore  a  few  miles  outside  Naupactus, 
the  eleven  leading  vessels  reached  the  harbor  in  safety.  Finding 
that  he  was  now  only  pursued  by  about  a  score  of  the  enemy — the 
rest  having  stayed  behind  to  take  possession  of  the  stranded 
Athenian  vessels — Phormio  came  boldly  out  of  port  again.  His 
eleven  vessels  took  six,  and  sunk  one  of  their  pursuers;  and  then, 
pushing  on  westward,  actually  succeeded  in  recapturing  most  of 
the  nine  ships  which  had  been  lost  in  the  morning.  This  engage- 
ment, though  it  had  no  great  results,  was  considered  the  most 
daring  feat  performed  by  the  Athenian  navy  during  the  whole  war. 
Phormio  was  soon  after  reinforced  from  Athens,  and  the 
Peloponnesians  sailed  back  to  Corinth.  While  they  lay  there, 
Brasidas,  one  of  the  Spartan  officers  serving  on  board  the  squadron, 
carried  out  a  sudden  and  desperate  feat  of  arms  which  gave  earnest 
of  his  future  achievements.  Ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  war 
the  Megarian  navy  had  been  lying  in  port,  without  daring  to 
venture  out  into  the  Saronic  Gulf.  It  amounted  to  forty  vessels, 
of  which  many  were  old  and  leaky,  but  all  could  be  used  for  a 
short  cruise.  Choosing  the  best  of  their  crews,  the  Peloponnesian 
commanders  marched  them  overland  to  Megara,  each  man  carry- 
ing his  oar  and  mat,  and  manned  the  galleys  at  nightfall.  Then 
suddenly  putting  out  to  sea,  they  captured  three  Athenian  galleys 
which  were  blockading  the  port  of  Nisaea,  and  afterwards  landed  on 
Salamis.  That  island  had  been  considered  a  secure  refuge  by  the 
Athenians,  and  was  full  of  cattle  and  property  that  had  been  re- 
moved for  safety  out  of  Attica.  All  this  the  Peloponnesians  swept 
ofif,  and  so  promptly  did  they  act  that  they  re-embarked  unharmed 
with  their  prisoners  and  spoil.  The  Athenians,  who  had  thronged 
down  in  rage  and  uproar  to  man  the  galleys  that  lay  at  Peiraeus, 
were  too  late  to  catch  a  single  one  of  the  marauders. 


P  L  A  T  A  E  A  291 

428  B.C. 

With  the  exception  of  a  fierce  but  fruitless  inroad  made  by  the 
Thracian  alHes  of  Athens  into  Macedonia,  no  other  operations  took 
place  in  429  B.C.  The  winter  passed  uneventfully,  and  the  war 
seemed  as  far  as  ever  from  showing  any  signs  of  producing  a 
definite  result.  But  although  the  Spartan  invasion  of  428  B.C.  had 
no  more  effect  than  those  of  the  preceding  years,  yet  in  the  late 
summer  there  occurred  an  event  so  fraught  with  evil  omens  for 
Athens  as  to  threaten  the  whole  fabric  of  her  empire.  For  the 
first  time  since  the  commencement  of  hostilities  an  important 
subject  state  made  an  endeavor  to  free  itself  by  the  aid  of  the 
Spartan  fleet,  Lesbos  was  one  of  the  two  Aegean  islands  which 
still  remained  free  from  tribute,  and  possessed  a  considerable  war- 
navy.  Among  its  five  towns  ^  Mitylene  was  the  chief,  and  far 
exceeded  the  others  in  wealth  and  resources.  It  was  governed  by 
an  oligarchy,  who  had  long  been  yearning  to  revolt,  and  had  made 
careful  preparation  by  accumulating  warlike  stores  and  enlisting 
foreign  mercenaries.  Before  their  arrangements  were  quite  com- 
plete, their  neighbors  of  Tenedos  and  Methymna  sent  secret  infor- 
mation to  Athens  of  the  intended  rebellion.  The  Athenians  at 
first  hardly  credited  the  news,  and  thought  it  a  serious  matter  to 
have  to  add  such  a  powerful  state  to  the  list  of  their  enemies. 
They  sent  ambassadors  to  pacify  the  Mitylenaeans,  but  without 
any  result.  The  whole  island  except  Methymna,  where  a  democ- 
racy ruled,  rose  in  arms,  and  determined  to  send  for  aid  to  Sparta. 
The  Athenians  at  once  dispatched  against  Mitylene  a  squadron  of 
forty  ships  under  Cleippides,  which  had  just  been  equipped  for  a 
cruise  in  Peloponnesian  waters.  This  force  had  an  engagement 
with  the  Lesbian  fleet,  and  drove  it  back  into  the  harbor  of 
Mitylene.  To  gain  time  for  assistance  from  across  the  Aegean  to 
arrive,  the  Lesbians  now  pretended  to  be  anxious  to  surrender,  and 
engaged  Cleippides  in  a  long  and  fruitless  negotiation,  while  they 
were  repeating  their  demands  at  Sparta.  But  at  last  the  Athenian 
grew  suspicious,  established  a  close  blockade  of  Mitylene  by  sea, 
and  landed  a  small  force  of  hoplites  to  hold  a  fortified  camp  on 
shore. 

The  autumn  had  now  arrived,  and  the  Lesbian  envoys  who 
had  been  sent  to  Sparta  were  conducted  to  Olympia,  where  the 
representatives  of  the  various  Peloponnesian  states  were  just  as- 
sembling to  assist  at  the  celebration  of  the  games.     Here  they  laid 
1  Mitylene,   Methymna,   Antissa,   Eresus,   Pyrrha. 


J292  G  R  P:  E  C  E 

428-427    B.C. 

their  grievances  before  the  confederates,  dwelling  not  so  much  on 
individual  instances  of  oppression  on  the  part  of  Athens  as  on  the 
fact  that  her  empire  made  impossible  that  autonomy  which  was 
the  right  of  every  state,  and  complaining  that  though  they  had 
only  entered  the  Delian  League  to  aid  in  freeing  the  Aegean  from 
the  Persians,  they  were  now  employed  against  their  will  in  every 
private  quarrel  which  Athens  waged  with  another  Greek  city. 
Believing  the  revolt  of  the  Lesbians  to  be  the  earnest  of  a  general 
rising  of  all  the  vassals  of  Athens,  the  Peloponnesians  determined 
to  make  a  vigorous  effort  in  their  favor.  The  land  contingents  of 
the  various  states  were  summoned  to  the  Isthmus — though  the 
harvest  was  now  ripe,  and  the  allies  were  loath  to  leave  their 
reaping — while  it  was  also  determined  to  haul  over  the  Corinthian 
Isthmus  the  fleet  which  had  fought  against  Phormio,  and  then  to 
dispatch  it  to  relieve  Mitylene. 

It  would  seem  that  much  of  this  temporary  burst  of  activity 
among  the  Peloponnesians  was  due  to  the  idea  that  Athens,  in 
consequence  of  the  plague  and  the  four  years  of  costly  and  indecisive 
war,  was  now  brought  very  low  in  resources.  They  were  soon 
undeceived ;  the  Athenians  were  furious  at  the  idea  that  their 
vassals  were  now  about  to  be  stirred  up  to  revolt,  and  strained 
every  nerve  to  defend  themselves.  While  the  blockade  of  Mitylene 
was  kept  up,  and  a  hundred  galleys  cruised  in  the  Aegean  to  inter- 
cept any  succors  sent  to  Lesbos,  another  squadron  of  a  hundred 
ships  sailed  round  Peloponnesus  and  harried  the  coastland  with 
a  systematic  ferocity  that  surpassed  any  of  their  previous  doings. 
To  complete  the  crews  of  the  two  hundred  and  fifty  ships  now 
afloat  and  in  active  service  proved  so  great  a  drain  on  the  military 
force  of  Athens,  that  not  only  the  Thetes,  but  citizens  of  the  higher 
classes  were  drafted  on  shipboard.  Nevertheless  the  effect  which 
they  designed  by  this  display  of  power  was  fully  produced.  To 
defend  their  own  harvests  the  confederates  who  had  met  at  the 
Isthmus  went  homewards,  while  the  dismay  at  the  strength  of  the 
Athenian  fleet  was  so  great  that  the  plan  of  sending  naval  aid  to 
Lesbos  was  put  off  for  the  present.  Only  a  Lacedaemonian  officer 
named  Salaethus  was  secretly  sent  across  to  Mitylene,  when  winter 
had  already  arrived ;  he  was  but  a  poor  reinforcement  when  the 
Lesbians  had  been  expecting  a  whole  fleet  to  come  to  their  aid. 

All  through  the  winter  of  428-7  B.C.  the  blockade  of  Mitylene 
was  kept  up,  though  its  maintenance  proved  a  great  drain  on  the 


P  L  A  T  A  E  A  293 

427   B.C. 

resources  of  Athens.  On  the  land  side  a  considerable  force  of 
hoplites  under  Paches  strengthened  the  troops  already  on  the  spot, 
and  made  it  possible  to  wall  the  city  in  with  lines  of  circumvalla- 
tion.  To  provide  funds  for  the  siege,  the  Athenians,  having  now 
exhausted  the  greater  part  of  the  hoarded  treasure  of  the  Delian 
League,  raised  two  hundred  talents  from  among  themselves  by  a 
property-tax,  and  also  sent  round  galleys  to  collect  extra  contribu- 
tions from  their  allies. 

When  the  spring  of  427  B.C.  arrived,  the  Spartans  determined 
to  make  a  serious  attempt  to  send  aid  to  Lesbos;  but  the  fear  of 
imperiling  all  their  naval  resources  in  a  single  expedition  kept 
them  from  dispatching  a  fleet  of  sufficient  size.  Only  forty-two 
galleys,  under  an  admiral  named  Alcidas,  were  sent  forth  from 
Corinth.  This  squadron  managed  to  cross  the  Aegean  without 
meeting  the  Athenians,  by  steering  a  cautious  and  circuitous  course 
among  the  islands.  But  so  much  time  was  lost  on  the  way  that 
on  arriving  off  Embatum  in  Ionia,  Alcidas  found  that  Mitylene 
had  surrendered  just  seven  days  before. 

The  circumstances  of  the  fall  of  Mitylene  were  peculiar.  Pro- 
visions had  been  growing  scarce,  and  Salaethus,  whom  the  Lesbians 
had  placed  in  command,  resolved  to  break  the  Athenian  lines  of 
investment  by  a  sortie  of  the  full  force  of  the  city.  For  this  pur- 
pose he  distributed  full  armor  to  all  the  lower  classes  of  the  city 
who  had  previously  served  only  as  light  troops.  But  the  proleta- 
riate of  Mitylene  had  no  interest  in  the  war,  which  had  been  entirely 
the  work  of  the  oligarchy.  They  only  thought  of  ending  the 
semi-starvation  from  which  they  had  been  suffering  of  late.  When 
they  were  provided  with  arms  they  refused  to  march,  mustered  in 
the  market-place,  and  demanded  with  threats  that  all  the  provisions 
in  the  town  should  be  placed  in  their  hands,  swearing  to  throw  the 
gates  open  to  the  Athenians  if  any  delay  was  made.  The  sedition 
grew  so  hot  that  the  magistrates,  in  fear  for  their  lives,  resolved 
to  make  terms  with  the  besiegers  before  the  rioters  anticipated 
them.  Accordingly  they  merely  stipulated  with  Paches  that  no 
one  should  be  put  to  death  until  the  Athenian  Ecclesia  should  have 
come  to  a  decision  as  to  the  fate  of  the  city,  and  that  when  the 
matter  was  being  debated  they  might  be  allowed  to  send  envoys  to 
speak  in  their  defense.  These  terms  amounted  to  a  surrender  at 
discretion,  and  were  readily  granted  by  the  Athenian  general. 
Placing  the   leading  men   of   the   oligarchical   party   in  bonds  at 


294  GREECE 

427  B.C. 

Tenedos,  he  let  the  rest  of  the  people  remain  undisturbed,  only 
throwing  a  strong  garrison  into  the  town.  A  few  days  after  the 
capitulation  Alcidas  and  his  fleet  arrived  in  Asiatic  waters.  Learn- 
ing of  the  fall  of  Mitylene,  he  made  off  southward,  and,  after  inter- 
cepting  many  merchant  vessels  off  the  Ionian  coast  and  brutally 
slaying  their  crews,  returned  to  Corinth  without  having  struck  a 
single  blow  for  the  cause  of  Sparta.  Paches  soon  reduced  Antissa, 
Eresus,  and  Pyrrha,  the  three  Lesbian  towns  which  had  joined  in 
the  revolt  of  Mitylene,  and  was  then  able  to  sail  back,  taking  with 
him  the  Laconian  general  Salaethus,  who  had  been  caught  in  hid- 
ing at  Mitylene,  together  with  the  other  leaders  of  the  revolt. 

When  the  prisoners  arrived  at  Athens  Salaethus  was  at  once 
put  to  death  without  a  trial.  But  the  fate  of  the  Lesbians  was  the 
subject  of  an  important  and  characteristic  debate  in  the  Ecclesia. 
Led  by  the  demagogue  Cleon,  the  Athenians  at  first  passed  the 
monstrous  resolution  that  the  whole  of  the  Mitylenaeans,  not 
merely  the  prisoners  at  Athens,  but  every  adult  male  in  the  city, 
should  be  put  to  death,  and  their  wives  and  families  sold  as  slaves. 
It  is  some  explanation  but  no  excuse  for  this  horrible  decree  that 
Lesbos  had  been  an  especially  favored  ally,  and  that  its  revolt  had 
for  a  moment  put  Athens  in  deadly  fear  of  a  general  rising  of  Ionia 
and  Aeolis. 

Cleon  the  leather-seller,  the  author  of  this  infamous  decree, 
was  one  of  the  statesmen  of  a  coarse  and  inferior  stamp  whose 
rise  had  been  rendered  possible  by  the  democratic  changes  which 
Pericles  had  introduced  into  the  state.  We  need  not  brand  him 
with  ignominy,  as  did  Aristophanes,  for  being  low-born  and  ill- 
educated,  or  following  a  distasteful  trade;  but  his  character  is 
sufficiently  blackened  by  the  acknowledged  facts  of  his  history. 
He  had  first  made  himself  known  as  an  uncompromising  democrat, 
and  a  captious  critic  of  everyone  who  held  an  office ;  even  Pericles 
himself  had  suffered  from  his  boisterous  assaults.  Cleon  was  one 
of  those  men  who,  being  gifted  with  very  moderate  abilities,  en- 
deavor to  thrust  themselves  to  the  front  by  the  profession  of  a 
narrow  and  unscrupulous  patriotism.  He  openly  treated  inter- 
national morality  as  non-existent,  and  proclaimed  that  his  country's 
interest  overrode  all  considerations  of  right  and  wrong.  Cleon's 
ability  was  limited  to  a  power  of  gauging  very  accurately  the  vary- 
ing moods  of  the  Ecclesia.  He  rose  to  notoriety  by  making  him- 
self the  mouthpiece  of  the  public  opinion  of  the  moment,  and  by 


P  L  A  T  A  E  A  295 

427   B.C. 

always  coming  forward  to  lead  the  assault  on  any  statesman  or 
general  who  made  himself  obnoxious  to  popular  prejudice.  The 
chief  victims  of  his  invective  were  the  remains  of  the  old  Conserva- 
tive party,  whom  he  unceasingly  accused  of  sympathizing  with 
Sparta  and  designedly  mismanaging  the  war.  It  is  unfortunate 
for  his  reputation  that  his  portrait  has  been  drawn  for  us  by  two 
authors  whom  he  had  personally  injured:  he  had  driven  the 
historian  Thucydides  into  exile,  and  endeavored  to  deprive  the 
comic  dramatist  Aristophanes  of  his  citizenship.  But  even  when 
we  discount  the  wholesale  charges  of  cowardice,  corruption,  cruelty, 
and  shamelessness  brought  against  him  by  these  authors,  it  is 
obvious  that  he  was  a  bane  to  his  country.  The  statesman  who 
preaches  to  the  populace  that  they  are  infallible  and  omniscient,  and 
at  the  same  time  encourages  them  to  cast  aside  principle  and  guide 
themselves  by  self-interest  alone,  is  the  most  pernicious  product  of 
democracy.  Cleon's  action  at  the  Mitylenaean  debate  is  a  fair 
sample  of  the  whole  of  his  public  life. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  day  of  debate  the  motion  of  Cleon  had 
been  passed,  and  a  galley  sent  off  to  Paches  at  Mitylene,  bidding 
him  slay  all  the  Lesbians;  but  on  the  next  morning,  when  men 
thought  over  the  matter  in  cold  blood,  there  arose  such  a  revulsion 
of  feeling  among  the  citizens  of  the  better  sort,  that  the  prytaneis 
were  induced  to  reassemble  the  Ecclesia,  and  bring  forward  the 
question  of  the  fate  of  Mitylene  for  a  second  decision.  Cleon 
stuck  to  his  bloodthirsty  resolution;  he  openly  said  that  the  Athe- 
nian empire  rested  on  fear  alone,  and  that  the  only  way  to  keep  the 
refit  of  the  allies  in  a  wholesome  state  of  fear  was  to  visit  the 
Mitylenaeans  with  the  harshest  punishment  that  could  be  devised. 
If  the  assembly  voted  one  thing  one  day  and  another  the  next,  it 
would  become  the  laughing-stock  of  Greece;  while  its  imbecile 
good-nature  would  encourage  other  states  to  revolt,  in  the  expecta- 
tion that,  even  if  they  were  subdued,  they  would  not  fare  very  ill. 

Diodotus,  the  orator  who  came  forward  to  answer  Cleon,  did 
not  dare  to  appeal  to  the  justice  of  the  assembly,  but  rather  strove 
to  demonstrate  that  expediency  required  Athens  to  refrain  from 
wholesale  massacre.  "  Let  the  leaders  be  put  to  trial,"  he  said, 
"  but  the  rest  left  alone.  If  you  condemn  the  common  people  of 
Mitylene,  who  took  no  part  in  the  revolt,  and  as  soon  as  they  got 
possession  of  arms  attacked  the  rebels,  you  are  not  merely  slaying 
your  benefactors,  but  committing  a  political  blunder.     At  present 


296  GREECE 

427   B.C. 

the  ruling  classes  in  every  allied  state  are  ready  to  revolt,  while  the 
proletariate  is,  on  the  whole,  well  disposed  towards  Athens.  But  if 
you  execute  all  the  Mitylenaeans  without  distinction,  the  populace 
in  every  city  will  feel  that  their  cause  is  the  same  as  that  of  the 
nobles,  and  revolts  for  the  future  will  be  desperate  and  unanimous." 
Such  arguments  won  over  the  Ecclesia  to  the  side  of  mercy.  The 
decree  of  Cleon  was  rescinded  by  a  small  majority,  and  a  second 
galley  sent  off  to  stay  Paches  from  the  massacre  which  he  had  been 
directed  to  commence.  But  the  first  ship  had  now  a  start  of  a  day 
and  a  night,  and  it  was  absolutely  necessary  to  make  all  possible 
speed,  or  the  reprieve  would  come  too  late.  The  friends  and  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Mitylenaeans  promised  the  crew  great  rewards  if 
they  would  only  arrive  in  time;  and,  stimulated  by  their  promises, 
the  vessel  made  an  extraordinarily  rapid  passage.  The  oarsmen 
took  their  food  at  the  bench,  and  rested  in  relays,  so  that  the  ship's 
progress  never  slackened.  By  extraordinary  exertions  the  bearers 
of  the  reprieve  contrived  to  reach  Lesbos  only  a  few  hours  after 
Paches  had  received  the  first  dispatch,  and  before  he  had  time  to 
put  it  into  execution. 

Thus  the  majority  of  the  Mitylenaeans  were  saved ;  but  all 
their  leaders  and  prominent  men,  not  less  than  a  thousand  in  num- 
ber, were  put  to  death :  the  mercy  of  the  Athenian  Ecclesia  would 
have  been  called  reckless  bloodthirstiness  in  most  other  ages.  The 
land  of  the  Lesbians  was  divided  into  three  thousand  lots,  of  which 
a  tenth  was  consecrated  to  the  gods,  while  the  rest  were  granted 
out  to  Athenian  cleruchs,  who  became  the  landlords  of  the  old 
owners,  and  permitted  them  to  cultivate  their  own  estates  at  a  rent 
of  two  minae  per  annum. 

Nothing  can  illustrate  more  strongly  the  emotional  and  incon- 
sistent character  of  the  Athenians  than  the  fate  of  Paches,  the 
conqueror  of  Alitylene.  On  his  return  home  he  was  prosecuted 
before  the  Dicastery  for  having  done  violence  to  two  Mitylenaean 
ladies,  whose  husbands  he  had  put  to  death.  The  anger  excited 
by  this  atrocity  found  such  outspoken  expression  that  the  criminal 
fell  on  his  sword  before  the  eyes  of  his  judges,  in  order  to  anticipate 
his  certain  condemnation  to  death.  Yet  the  mob,  which  howled 
down  Paches,  had  contemplated  an  outrage  on  a  scale  a  thousand- 
fold greater  than  that  which  their  victim  had  committed. 

In  the  winter  and  spring  of  427  b.c,  while  the  siege  and  fall 
of  Mitylene  were  in  progress,  another  blockade  had  been  drawing 


P  L  A  T  A  E  A  297 

427   B.C. 

to  an  end  in  a  land  nearer  Athens.  Plataea  had  now  been  besieged 
ever  since  the  summer  of  429  b.c,  and  as  the  Athenians  had 
beHed  their  promises,  and  made  no  attempt  to  reheve  the  place,  the 
garrison  were  drawing  near  the  end  of  their  stores.  Starvation 
was  growing  so  threatening  by  the  end  of  the  winter  of  428-7  b.c.j 
that  a  large  part  of  the  garrison  determined  to  make  a  desperate 
attempt  to  break  out.  Eupompidas,  the  Plataean  commander, 
persuaded  about  fifty  Athenians  and  a  hundred  and  seventy  of  his 
own  countrymen  to  follow  him,  though  the  prospect  of  having  to 
cross  two  ditches  and  force  two  separate  lines  of  wall  might  have 
appalled  the  most  venturesome  of  men.  They  chose  a  moonless 
night,  when  rain  was  falling,  and  stole  out  of  the  city  carrying 
scaling-ladders.  They  crossed  the  inner  ditch  unobserved,  and  had 
mounted  the  first  wall  before  they  were  discovered  by  the  sentinels. 
Then  the  alarm  was  given,  and  the  besiegers  began  to  come  up  in 
disorder  from  their  various  posts.  The  darkness,  however,  sent 
many  astray,  while  those  of  the  Plataeans  who  had  not  joined  in 
the  attempt  made  a  sortie  from  the  opposite  side  of  the  town  to 
distract  the  enemy.  Thus  it  happened  that  the  adventurers  were 
already  descending  from  the  second  wall  before  the  besiegers  began 
to  appear  in  force.  While  the  majority  were  crossing  the  outer 
ditch,  which  was  deep  and  full  of  floating  ice,  the  rest  stood  at  bay 
and  kept  back  the  approaching  Boeotians.  So  silently  and  rapidly 
was  the  matter  finished  that  the  Plataeans  got  away  in  safety  almost 
to  a  man,  for  two  hundred  and  twelve  out  of  two  hundred  and 
twenty  slipped  through.  After  escaping  from  the  outer  wall  they 
avoided  the  direct  road  to  Athens,  by  which  they  knew  they  would 
be  pursued,  and  making  a  detour  in  the  plain  reached  a  hill-road 
far  to  the  east,  by  which  they  escaped  unmolested. 

This  gallant  and  successful  sortie  left  Plataea  very  scantily 
manned,  but  enabled  the  reduced  garrison  to  hold  out  much  longer 
on  their  limited  stock  of  provisions.  The  siege  was  protracted  not 
less  than  six  months,  till  the  summer  of  427  B.C.  was  at  its  height. 
Then  absolute  starvation  so  weakened  the  Plataeans  that  the 
besiegers  might  have  taken  the  place  by  storm,  but  they  refrained 
from  doing  so  on  account  of  orders  from  Sparta,  which  bade  them 
wait  for  a  capitulation.  The  reason  of  this  was  that  the  ephors 
intended  to  make  a  distinction,  if  ever  peace  with  Athens  became 
necessary,  between  places  which  had  been  captured  by  force  and 
those  which  made  a  voluntary  surrender.     At  last  the  besieged  were 


298  GREECE 

427   B.C. 

brought  so  low  that  they  surrendered  at  discretion,  on  the  ominous 
condition  "  that  the  Lacedaemonians  should  be  allowed  to  punish 
the  guilty."  Five  judges  were  sent  down  from  Sparta,  and  the 
survivors  of  the  garrison,  two  hundred  Plataeans  and  twenty-five 
Athenians,  were  arraigned  before  them.  The  trial  proved  a  pre- 
posterous farce ;  the  prisoners  were  asked  one  after  the  other 
"  whether  during  the  war  they  had  done  any  service  to  the  Lace- 
daemonians or  their  allies."  On  making  the  only  possible  reply, 
they  were  condemned  without  exception  to  suffer  death.  It  was  to 
no  effect  that  their  leaders  pleaded  in  their  behalf  the  many  services 
which  Plataea  had  done  to  the  cause  of  Greece  during  past  times, 
and  especially  in  the  Persian  war.  The  Thebans,  who  had  never 
forgiven  the  massacre  of  their  two  hundred  citizens  at  the  out- 
break of  the  war,  answered  with  a  flood  of  bitter  invective,  and  put 
such  pressure  on  their  Spartan  allies  that  the  sentence  v\^as  at  once 
carried  out.  Thus  fell  Plataea  after  two  full  years  of  siege,  in  the 
fifth  summer  of  the  war. 

The  Thebans  appropriated  the  territory  of  the  conquered  town, 
demolished  its  houses,  and  left  nothing  standing  on  the  spot  save 
the  temple  of  Hera,  and  a  sort  of  vast  inn  or  caravansary  for 
strangers,  which  they  built  with  the  stonework  of  the  ruined 
dwellings. 


Chapter  XXIX 

SPHACTERIA  AND   DELIUM,  427-424  B.C. 

THE  same  summer  which  saw  the  fall  of  Plataea  and  Mity- 
lene  beheld  the  first  grave  instance  of  divergence  from  the 
policy  of  Pericles  of  which  the  Athenians  had  yet  been 
guilty.  Although  they  were  conscious  of  the  imminent  danger  in 
the  Aegean  which  they  had  just  escaped,  they  now  proceeded  to 
indulge  in  a  rash  and  venturesome  expedition  far  from  home.  In 
Sicily  a  war  was  at  this  moment  raging  between  Syracuse — with 
whom  were  allied  Gela,  Selinus,  and  Acragas,  together  with  the 
Italiot  town  of  Locri — and  a  confederacy  of  the  three  Ionian  cities 
of  Naxos,  Catana,  and  Leontini,  joined  with  Camarina  and  the 
Italiots  of  Rhegium.  We  are  assured  that  the  interference  of 
Athens  in  this  distant  strife  was  due  to  a  desire  to  establish  a  foot- 
ing in  Sicily,  and  to  a  plan  for  ruining  the  corn  trade  with  the 
West,  which  formed  the  most  profitable  branch  of  the  commerce 
of.Corinth.  Twenty  Athenian  ships  under  Laches  sailed  round  by 
Corcyra  to  Rhegium,  where  they  joined  the  fleet  of  the  Ionian  cities, 
and  next  spring  engaged  in  a  desultory  naval  campaign  which 
brought  neither  party  any  gain. 

The  later  months  of  427  b.c.  were  also  notable  for  a  fierce 
sedition  in  Corcyra,  where  a  party  which  favored  peace  with  Corinth 
made  a  desperate  rising,  and  strove  to  put  down  the  democracy, 
which  was  responsible  for  the  alliance  with  Athens  and  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  war.  The  Spartans  determined  to  strengthen  their 
friends  by  sending  to  their  aid  the  fleet  which  had  failed  to  relieve 
Mitylene.  But  Alcidas  once  more  arrived  too  late ;  the  Corcyraean 
oligarchs  were  put  down,  and  the  victorious  democratic  faction  took 
a  bloody  and  reckless  revenge  on  their  defeated  opponents.  Sev- 
eral hundreds,  including  many  who  were  innocent  of  treason,  were 
put  to  death  without  any  regular  trial  or  condemnation. 

The  next  year  of  the  war,  426  b.c.^  was  perhaps  the  least  event- 
ful which  had  passed  since  the  outbreak  of  hostilities.  A  second 
outbreak  of  the  plague  occurred  at  Athens,  but  it  wrought  no  very 

299 


300  GREECE 

426  B.C. 

great  destruction  of  life  in  comparison  with  the  awful  visitation 
of  430  B.C.  The  most  important  event  of  the  year  was  an  expedi- 
tion— as  reckless  though  not  so  remote  as  that  which  had  been  sent 
to  Sicily — which  marked  once  more  the  tendency  of  the  Athenians 
to  engage  in  distant  adventures.  Demosthenes,  the  general  who 
was  now  in  command  of  the  squadron  in  the  Corinthian  Gulf  which 
had  once  belonged  to  Phormio,  determined  to  make  an  attack  on 
the  numerous  an4  warlike  tribes  of  Aetolia,  who  had  up  to  this 
moment  preserved  their  neutrality.  The  Messenians  of  Naupactus 
had  persuaded  him  that  their  Aetolian  neighbors  were  so  uncivilized 
and  so  untrained  to  regular  war  that  they  would  yield  to  a  bold 
attack,  and  consent  to  join  the  Athenian  alliance.  Accordingly 
Demosthenes  took  with  him,  besides  his  own  hoplites,  forces  from 
Naupactus  and  Zacynthus,  and  started  up  into  the  Aetolian  hills. 
He  captured  a  village  or  two,  but  presently  the  whole  countryside 
turned  out  in  arms,  and  the  lightly  equipped  mountaineers  so  vexed 
and  galled  the  invaders  that  Demosthenes  was  obliged  to  fall  back. 
When  once  he  began  to  retire  he  was  so  closely  pressed  that  his 
whole  army  broke  up,  and  fled  in  disorder  to  Naupactus  with  the 
loss  of  nearly  half  its  numbers. 

It  was  of  some  solace  to  Athenian  pride,  but  of  little  use  to 
Athenian  policy,  that  a  few  months  later  Demosthenes  succeeded 
in  retrieving  his  military  reputation  by  a  brilliant  victory  in 
Acarnania.  The  detachment  of  Peloponnesian  troops  which  had 
been  sent  to  that  country  in  429  B.C.  had  been  once  more  joined 
by  the  hoplites  of  the  Corinthian  colonies  on  the  coast,  and  was 
again  attacking  the  Acarnanians.  Demosthenes,  massing  the 
whole  disposable  forces  of  his  allies,  threw  himself  between  the 
main  body  of  the  enemy  and  their  reserves.  On  one  day  he  defeated 
the  Peloponnesians  and  slew  their  leader,  Eurylochus ;  on  the  next 
he  fell  upon  the  Ambraciot  reinforcements  which  were  advancing 
to  aid  the  defeated  force,  and  almost  exterminated  them.  The 
blow  to  Ambracia  was  so  great  that  in  the  opinion  of  Thucydides 
it  was  the  heaviest  which  fell  on  any  city  in  the  whole  war,  and  the 
proportion  of  the  military  strength  of  the  place  which  was  destroyed 
was  almost  incredibly  large.  But  the  victory  led  to  an  unexpected 
result ;  the  Acarnanians,  knowing  themselves  to  be  free  from  any 
further  danger  from  their  neighbors  of  the  seacoast,  made  a 
separate  peace  with  them.  The  Athenian  alliance  had  served  their 
purpose  in  preserving  them  from  conquest  by  the  Corinthian  colo- 


SPHACTERIA    AND    DELIUM  301 

425  B.C. 

nists,  and  they  had  no  longer  any  keen  interest  in  the  war.  Thus 
Demosthenes,  though  he  had  crippled  an  enemy  of  Athens  by  his 
victor}^  had  also  taken  off  the  edge  of  the  devotion  of  a  zealous  and 
useful  ally. 

The  year  425  B.C.  was  destined  to  be  more  fruitful  in  decisive 
events  than  any  which  had  preceded  it  since  the  opening  of  the 
war.  These  events,  however,  sprung  not  from  the  deliberate  plans 
of  either  side,  but  from  a  mere  chance.  Early  in  the  year  the 
Athenians,  still  following  their  visionary  scheme  of  establishing 
a  foothold  in  Sicily,  had  determined  to  send  out  reinforcements  to 
the  west.  A  fleet  of  forty  ships,  under  an  officer  named  Euryme- 
don,  v/as  dispatched  thither.  Demosthenes,  too,  sailed  with  this 
squadron :  he  had  returned  to  Athens  since  his  victories  in  Acar- 
nania,  and  was  now  going  back  to  his  post.  After  Eurymedon  and 
Demosthenes  had  rounded  Taenarum,  a  storm  compelled  them  to 
put  into  the  Alessenian  harbor  of  Pylos,^  and  kept  them  wind-bound 
for  several  days.  The  sailors  ventured  ashore,  and,  to  secure 
themselves  irom  sudden  attacks  of  the  Peloponnesians,  threw  up  a 
light  entrenchment  on  the  rocky  headland  which  forms  the  northern 
point  of  the  Pylian  Bay.  The  stay  of  the  fleet  was  protracted  far 
beyond  the  expectations  of  the  admirals,  and  it  presently  occurred 
to  Demosthenes  that  the  extemporized  fort  might  be  strengthened 
and  made  a  permanent  base  for  incursions  against  the  western  shore 
of  the  Peloponnese.  It  was  perched  on  an  extraordinarily  inacces- 
sible spot,  commanded  a  good  harborage,  and  lay  in  that  Messenian 
district  whose  Helots  had  risen  so  often  against  the  Spartan. 
Accordingly  Demosthenes  persuaded  his  men  to  entrench  the  head- 
land as  best  they  could,  piling  stone  on  stone  into  a  strong  though 
rough  wall  wherever  it  was  possible  to  ascend  the  slope  on  the  land 
side,  till  the  fort  was  made  tenable  against  any  ordinary  assault. 
On  the  sea  side  the  cliffs  allowed  of  approach  only  on  one  narrow 
slip  of  beach,  where  lay  the  landing-place  at  which  the  x\thenians 
had  gone  ashore.  When  the  work  of  fortification  had  been  com- 
pleted, Eurymedon  proceeded  on  his  way  to  Sicily  with  thirty-five 
ships,  leaving  Demosthenes  with  five  to  hold  the  fort. 

The  news  of  the  occupation  of  Pylos  soon  reached  Sparta,  and 
the  strength  of  the  Athenian  force  which  had  landed  was  so  exag- 
gerated by  report  that  the  ephors  sent  in  hot  haste  to  recall  the 
Peloponnesian  army    which  had  marched  a  few  weeks  before  to 

*  Probably  not  the  same  as  the  Pylos  of  Nestor  mentioned  on  p.  23, 


302  GREECE 

425    B.C. 

carry  out  the  usual  summer  raid  into  Attica,  Accordingly,  King 
Agis  with  his  host  quitted  their  ravaging,  and  set  out  homeward. 
At  the  same  moment  the  fleet,  which  had  been  so  unfortunately  tardy 
at  Mitylene  and  Corcyra,  was  summoned  up  to  complete  the  block- 
ade of  Pylos  on  the  sea-front.  Demosthenes  had  just  time  to  send 
ofif  two  vessels  to  report  the  approach  of  the  enemy  before  he  was 
completely  invested  and  beset  on  all  sides. 

The  promontory  of  Pylos  forms  the  northern  horn  of  the  bay 
of  the  same  name ;  facing  it  at  a  distance  of  a  hundred  yards,  and 
fronting  the  whole  expanse  of  the  bay,  lies  the  island  of  Sphacteria, 
a  narrow  rock  some  two  miles  in  length,  overgrown  with  under- 
wood and  thickets.  As  this  island  was  the  natural  point  which  an 
Athenian  force,  desiring  to  relieve  Pylos,  would  choose  as  its  base 
of  operations,  the  Spartans  determined  to  occupy  it.  Accordingly 
they  sent  over  to  it  four  hundred  and  twenty  hoplites,  together 
with  the  usual  complement  of  light-armed  Helots  in  attendance  on 
their  masters — a  force  sufficient  to  make  any  landing  difficult. 
The  two  narrow  inlets  to  the  north  and  south  of  the  island  they 
intended  to  bar  with  a  close  line  of  vessels  moored  across  the 
entrance,  but  this  design  was  not  completed. 

Meanwhile  the  garrison  at  Pylos  was  exposed  to  several  des- 
perate attacks.  Knowing  that  an  Athenian  fleet  would  probably 
appear  ere  long  to  aid  Demosthenes,  the  Spartan  commanders  made 
a  vigorous  attempt  to  take  the  fort  by  storm  before  it  could  be 
succored.  The  land  and  sea  fronts  were  simultaneously  assaulted ; 
on  the  former  side  the  position  was  so  strong  that  a  small  party  of 
the  besieged  was  able  to  keep  the  Peloponnesians  at  bay.  But  a 
desperate  struggle  took  place  on  the  narrow  slip  of  beach  where 
alone  landing  was  possible.  There  Demosthenes  and  his  hoplites 
stood  in  serried  rows,  while  trireme  after  trireme  tried  to  push  itself 
up  to  the  landing-place  and  to  throw  its  fighting-men  ashore.  Only 
two  or  three  vessels  could  approach  at  a  time,  and  the  front  on 
which  fighting  could  take  place  was  so  narrow  that  superiority  of 
numbers  was  of  no  avail.  After  a  prolonged  encounter  the  Pelo- 
ponnesians backed  water;  the  difficulty  of  the  place  had  been  too 
much  for  them;  they  had  lost  many  men,  and  Brasidas,  their  best 
officer,  had  fallen  back  on  his  deck  desperately  wounded  at  the 
moment  that  he  was  endeavoring  to  leap  ashore.  The  assault, 
indeed,  had  so  signally  failed  that  the  Athenians  set  up  a  trophy  to 
commemorate   it,   binding   thereto   the   shield   of   Brasidas,    which 


SPHACTERIA   AND    DELIUM  303 

425  B.C. 

had  fallen  into  the  sea  at  the  moment  that  its  owner  was  struck 
down. 

Before  the  Spartans  had  time  to  construct  siege-engines  or 
commence  a  regular  blockade  of  Pylos,  an  Athenian  fleet  appeared 
in  the  offing.  Eurymedon  had  met  the  vessels  which  Demosthenes 
had  sent  off  to  seek  him,  and  had  turned  back  to  relieve  his  col- 
league, after  strengthening  himself  with  the  squadron  which  was 
stationed  off  the  Acarnanian  coast.  The  Peloponnesian  admirals, 
instead  of  endeavoring  to  block  the  two  entrances  of  the  bay  of 
Pylos,  allowed  the  Athenian  fleet  to  file  into  the  harbor,  and 
engaged  it  in  the  space  of  water  between  Sphacteria  and  the  main- 
land. The  forty-three  vessels  under  the  Spartan  commander  were 
defeated  with  ease  by  the  fifty  galleys  of  Eurymedon.  Five  were 
taken,  and  the  rest  driven  to  run  ashore  and  seek  the  protection  of 
their  friends  of  the  land  army.  The  importance  of  this  victory  lay 
in  the  fact  that  the  Spartan  hoplites  on  Sphacteria  were  now  com- 
pletely cut  off  from  help,  and  imprisoned  on  their  island.  They 
included  some  of  the  most  important  citizens  of  the  state,  and  were 
a  very  appreciable  part  of  the  small  body  of  pure-blooded  Lace- 
daemonians. Shut  up  on  a  desolate  island,  with  provisions  for  a 
few  days  only  in  hand,  they  were  obviously  destined  to  fall  into  the 
power  of  the  Athenians,  unless  something  could  be  done  to  deliver 
them. 

When  the  news  from  Pylos  reached  Sparta,  the  ephors  at  once 
set  out  for  the  camp,  and  viewed  the  situation  with  their  own  eyes. 
So  little  confidence  did  their  visit  bring  them  that  they  at  once 
proposed  to  Demosthenes  and  Eurymedon  to  conclude  an  armistice, 
and  offered  to  send  an  embassy  to  Athens  to  treat  for  peace.  The 
danger  of  four  hundred  of  their  own  citizens  had  brought  them  at 
once  to  a  state  of  despondency  and  humiliation  which  no  amount 
of  suffering  inflicted  on  their  allies  would  have  produced.  The 
Athenian  commanders  consented  to  grant  a  truce,  and  to  allow  the 
blockaded  hoplites  to  be  supplied  with  a  bare  ration  of  food,  day 
by  day,  as  long  as  the  armistice  continued.  But  they  exacted  in 
return  that  the  Peloponnesian  vessels,  which  were  lying  on  shore 
by  the  camp,  should  be  placed  in  their  hands,  as  a  security  for  the 
full  observance  of  the  terms  of  the  truce.  To  this  the  ephors  con- 
sented, and  at  once  dispatched  ambassadors  to  Athens  to  treat  for 
peace. 

This  was  the  one  opportunity  which  was  presented  to  the 


304<  GREECE 

425    B.C. 

Athenians,  during  the  war,  of  retiring  from  the  contest  with  glory 
and  profit.  The  Spartans  announced  that  they  were  ready  to  revert 
to  the  status  quo  of  431  B.C.,  and  to  ratify  a  permanent  peace;  they 
pointed  out  that  the  war  had  hitherto  been  inconclusive,  and  that, 
if  their  overtures  were  now  refused,  the  next  turn  of  fortune  might 
make  the  Athenians  lament  their  lost  chance.  The  proposal  was 
one  which  Pericles  would  undoubtedly  have  accepted ;  it  left  Athens 
with  her  empire  and  the  commerce  unimpaired,  and  proved  that, 
even  when  all  the  land-powers  of  Greece  banded  themselves 
together,  they  had  been  unable  to  shake  her  dominion.  But  the 
firm  hand  and  cool  head  of  Pericles  no  longer  swayed  the  Athenian 
assembly,  and  the  windy  demagogues  who  now  ruled  it  were  set 
upon  pressing  the  advantage  of  Athens  to  the  uttermost,  without 
any  regard  for  caution  or  moderation.  Now,  as  at  the  time  of 
the  Mitylenaean  debate,  Cleon  made  himself  the  mouthpiece  of  the 
ultra-patriotic  party ;  he  declared  that  Athens  must  not  throw  away 
her  chance  of  making  a  hard  bargain  with  Sparta,  and  proposed 
that,  in  return  for  peace,  the  Peloponnesians  should  surrender  to 
Athens  the  districts  which  had  formed  part  of  the  Athenian  land- 
empire  twenty  years  before.  He  demanded  that  Troezen,  Achaia, 
and  the  ports  of  the  Megarid — Nisaea  and  Pegae — all  of  which  had 
been  given  up  in  445  B.C.,  should  be  made  over  to  their  former 
suzerain.  The  Laconian  ambassadors  replied  that  the  terms  were 
inadmissible,  but  professed  themselves  ready  to  make  advantageous 
proposals,  if  the  Athenians  would  depute  commissioners  to  treat 
with  them,  and  not  insist  on  the  negotiations  being  carried  on  in 
the  heated  atmosphere  of  the  Ecclesia.  Cleon  at  once  burst  out 
with  invectives.  He  insisted  that  the  envoys  were  trifling  with  the 
people,  and  could  have  no  honest  intentions  if  they  would  not 
declare  their  whole  mission  in  public.  The  feeling  of  the  assembly 
was  so  obviously  on  his  side  that  the  Spartans  withdrew  in  despair, 
and  returned  to  report  to  the  ephors  the  complete  failure  of  their 
embassy. 

The  rupture  of  negotiations  at  Athens  was  the  signal  for  the 
resumption  of  hostilities  at  Pylos.  The  Spartans  on  the  island,  who 
had  for  twenty  days  been  subsisting  on  the  rations  with  which  they 
were  supplied  in  accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  truce,  were  again 
thrown  on  their  own  slender  resources.  No  help  for  them  seemed 
possible,  more  especially  since  Eurymedon,  alleging  some  slight 
infraction  of  the  truce  by  the  hostile  commanders,  utterly  refused 


SPHACTERIA   AND    DELIUM  305 

425  B.C. 

to  restore  the  Peloponnesian  war-galleys  which  had  been  entrusted 
to  him.  His  plea  seems  to  have  been  quite  untenable,  but,  having 
the  vessels  in  his  hands,  he  was  master  of  the  situation.  While  the 
Athenian  fleet  blockaded  Sphacteria,  two  triremes  being  continually 
kept  moving  up  and  down  its  coast  in  opposite  directions,  the 
marines  strengthened  the  fort  at  Pylos.  A  very  large  Pelopon- 
nesian army  now  lay  before  that  work,  but  proved  entirely  unable 
to  master  it. 

A  few  days  would  have  sufficed  to  starve  out  the  garrison  of 
Sphacteria  had  it  not  been  for  the  extraordinary  measures  which 
the  Spartans  took  to  keep  it  supplied  with  food.  On  every  dark  or 
stormy  night  small  vessels  put  out  from  various  ports  of  Elis  or 
Laconia  and  ran  the  blockade ;  such  high  rewards  were  promised  by 
the  ephors  for  every  sack  of  flour  or  skin  of  wine  that  could  be 
thrown  ashore  that  the  merchants  and  seamen  were  ready  to  run 
any  risk,  and  though  many  boats  were  taken,  others  continually 
succeeded  in  reaching  the  island.  We  are  also  assured  that  strong 
swimmers  would  frequently  cross  the  bay  at  night  from  the  main- 
land, dragging  behind  them  skins  filled  with  linseed  or  honey,  and 
other  food  that  would  pack  close.  These  expedients  kept  the  men 
on  the  island  supplied  with  a  ration  sufficient  to  maintain  them,  and 
the  blockade  was  therefore  protracted  far  beyond  the  expectation 
of  the  Athenians,  who  had  looked  for  the  immediate  surrender  of 
the  garrison.  After  two  months  had  gone  by  the  autumn  was 
drawling  on,  and  it  began  to  appear  as  if  the  storms  of  the  equinox 
would  ere  long  drive  the  Athenians  from  their  bleak  and  dangerous 
harborage  under  the  promontory  of  Pylos. 

The  discontent  felt  at  Athens  over  the  miscarriage  of  the  block- 
ade was  now  growing  acute,  and  the  people  began  to  regret  their 
refusal  of  the  terms  of  peace  which  Sparta  had  offered.  This 
induced  them  to  turn  their  anger  against  Cleon,  who  had  caused 
those  terms  to  be  rejected.  The  demagogue,  wishing  to  divert 
their  discontent,  replied  that  the  real  fault  lay  with  the  generals  at 
Pylos,  who  had  showed  a  great  lack  of  courage  and  enterprise,  and 
might  have  reduced  the  island  long  ago  if  they  had  possessed 
ordinary  vigilance  and  energy.  "  I  could  have  taken  Sphacteria 
myself,"  he  added,  "  if  I  had  been  in  command."  This  casual 
remark  was  at  once  taken  up  by  the  enemies  of  Cleon.  "  If  it  is  so 
easy,  why  not  go  and  try  it  ?  "  was  shouted  from  the  crowd.  Then 
Nicias,  son  of  Niceratus,  one  of  the  strategi,  a  rich  citizen  who 


306  GREECE 

425   B.C. 

detested  Cleon's  political  methods,  stepped  on  to  the  Bema,  and 
formally  proposed  that  the  tanner  should  be  sent  to  Pylos.  This 
decree  was  only  proposed  at  first  as  a  piece  of  party  sarcasm;  the 
conception  of  Cleon  at  the  head  of  a  fleet  was  too  ridiculous  in  the 
eyes  of  his  opponents  to  be  taken  seriously.  An  absurd  scene  then 
ensued,  as  the  demagogue  kept  declining  the  unexpected  honor,  and 
his  enemies  continued  to  press  it  on  him  with  effusion.  But  to 
many  of  the  multitude  the  notion  of  Cleon  in  command  did  not 
appear  so  preposterous  as  it  did  to  Nicias ;  and  those  who  had  been 
accustomed  to  follow  the  tanner's  political  lead,  cried  out  in  earnest 
that  he  was  quite  able  to  undertake  the  business.  The  proposal 
which  had  been  brought  forward  in  jest  was  ere  long  seriously 
taken  into  consideration,  Nicias  was  unable  to  withdraw  his 
motion,  and  Cleon  found  himself  constrained  to  stand  by  his  first 
unguarded  words.  Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  in  the  end  the 
demagogue  plucked  up  his  courage,  declared  that  he  did  not  share 
that  panic  fear  of  Spartan  heroism  which  other  men  seemed  to 
feel,  and  staked  his  career  on  a  promise  to  capture  or  destroy  the 
garrison  of  Sphacteria  within  twenty  days.  He  asked  for  no 
Athenian  troops  to  help  him,  and  undertook  to  finish  the  game  with 
four  hundred  archers,  some  hoplites  from  Imbros  and  Lemnos  who 
were  then  in  the  city,  and  a  body  of  Thracian  light  infantry.  Con- 
trol over  these  forces  was  granted  him,  and  he  sailed  at  once  for 
Pylos.  "  The  most  sensible  men  at  Athens,"  says  Thucydides, 
"  thought  that  they  had  now  gained  one  of  two  good  things. 
Either  (as  was  most  likely)  Cleon  would  fail  and  be  politically 
extinguished  for  ever;  or  else  he  would  succeed,  and  a  heavy  blow 
be  inflicted  on  Sparta." 

Cleon's  undertaking  was  not  so  rash  and  ridiculous  as  men 
thought.  He  was  quite  right  in  believing  that  Spartans  were  after 
all  not  invulnerable  and  invincible  heroes,  but  men  who  could  be 
overwhelmed  by  stress  of  numbers  like  any  other  troops.  The 
detachment  on  Sphacteria  was  composed  of  some  few  hundred  men, 
and  if  attacked  with  sufficient  vigor  by  four  or  five  times  its  own 
force  must  finally  succumb.  It  is  said  that  Demosthenes  had 
already  been  thinking  of  an  attack  on  the  island,  and  had  only  been 
prevented  by  the  caution  of  his  colleague. 

Just  before  Cleon  arrived  at  Sphacteria,  an  accidental  fire  had 
destroyed  most  of  the  woods  with  which  the  island  was  overgrown, 
and  deprived  the  Spartans  of  the  greater  part  of  their  cover.     Their 


SPHACTERIA   AND    DELIUM  307 

425   B.C. 

numbers  could  be  more  clearly  seen  and  their  maneuvers  more 
closely  followed  than  had  hitherto  been  possible.  Cleon  at  once 
took  general  charge  of  the  operations,  handing  over  the  execution 
of  the  details  to  Demosthenes.  They  resolved  to  overwhelm  the 
Spartans  by  gross  force  of  numbers.  Eight  hundred  hoplites  were 
landed  by  night,  near  the  southern  extremity  of  the  island,  and 
covered  the  disembarkation  of  the  rest  of  the  force.  They  cut  off  an 
outpost  of  thirty  men  which  was  posted  in  that  direction,  and  were 
firmly  established  on  shore  before  Epitadas,  the  Spartan  com- 
mander, approached  them  with  his  main  body  of  three  hundred  and 
fifty  men.  By  this  time  eight  hundred  bowmen,  the  same  number 
of  peltasts,  a  body  of  Messenian  light  troops,  and  a  large  draft  from 
the  crews  of  the  seventy  ships  at  Pylos  had  been  thrown  on  the 
shore.  When  Epitadas  advanced  against  the  hoplites  a  cloud  of 
slingers  and  bowmen  closed  in  on  his  flanks  and  rear,  and  so  beset 
him  with  a  rain  of  missiles  that  his  small  body  of  men  were 
gradually  brought  to  a  standstill.  They  were  now  charging  over 
ground  covered  by  the  smoldering  ashes  of  the  burned  wood,  and 
the  dust  and  reek  well-nigh  choked  and  blinded  them.  As  the 
Athenians  would  not  close,  but  kept  shooting  them  down  from  a  dis- 
tance, their  position  became  unbearable.  At  last,  after  Epitadas 
had  been  slain,  his  successor  in  command  gave  the  signal  for  retreat, 
and  the  surviving  Spartans  cut  their  way  through  the  light  troops, 
and  threw  themselves  into  a  ruined  fort  of  prehistoric  days,  which 
lay  at  the  north  end  of  the  island.  Here  they  maintained  them- 
selves for  a  short  time;  but  presently  some  IMessenians,  finding  a 
way  up  a  crag  which  overhung  the  fort,  appeared  on  a  spot  which 
completely  commanded  the  Spartan  position,  and  commenced  to 
pick  off  the  enemy  from  the  rear.  The  Spartans  were  now 
obviously  doomed  men,  and  Cleon  and  Demosthenes,  holding  back 
their  troops  for  a  minute,  sent  out  a  herald  to  bid  them  sur- 
render. 

To  the  surprise  of  those  who  believed  that  a  Spartan  never 
would  lay  down  his  arms,  the  majority  of  the  survivors  lowered 
their  shields  and  waved  their  hands  to  show  that  they  accepted  the 
proposal.  Their  officers  asked  leave  to  communicate  with  the  army 
on  the  mainland,  and  after  doing  so,  and  receiving  the  despairing 
advice  to  "  take  such  measures  as  they  could,  so  long  as  they  were 
not  dishonorable,"  completed  a  formal  capitulation.  Two  hun- 
dred and  ninety-two  hoplites  still  survived  out  of  the  four  hundred 


308  GREECE 

425    B.C. 

and  twenty  on  the  island;  how  many  of  their  Helots  were  left  is 
not  known.  No  less  than  one  hundred  and  twenty  of  the  prisoners 
were  members  of  the  best  families  of  Sparta. 

Thus  had  Cleon  fulfilled  his  promise  to  the  Athenian  Ecclesia. 
We  are  told  that  his  success  was,  "  of  all  the  events  of  the  war,  the 
one  which  caused  most  surprise  in  Greece."  If  this  was  so,  it 
illustrates  the  exaggerated  impression  of  Spartan  valor  which  pre- 
vailed at  the  time,  rather  than  the  rashness  or  gool  luck  of  Cleon. 
He  landed  on  the  island  with  more  thousands  at  his  back 
than  Epitadas  had  hundreds,  and  yet  his  victory  was  considered 
remarkable. 

After  their  fleet  returned  with  the  prisoners  on  board,  the 
Athenians  thought  that  the  whole  game  was  in  their  hands.  Cleon, 
inflated  by  his  exploits,  was  more  exacting  than  ever;  and  when  a 
new  Spartan  embassy  arrived  to  propose  once  more  a  general  peace, 
and  the  restoration  of  their  prisoners,  the  terms  offered  them  were 
even  harder  than  before,  so  that  nothing  could  be  done. 

The  success  at  Sphacteria  soon  tempted  the  Athenians  into 
action  on  land  more  daring  than  any  they  had  hitherto  performed. 
Before  the  year  v/as  out  they  landed  several  thousand  hoplites  near 
the  Corinthian  Isthmus,  defeated  the  Corinthians  in  a  pitched  battle 
at  Solygeia,  and  retired  unmolested  to  their  ships.  Then  coasting 
southward,  they  again  landed  in  the  territory  of  Epidaurus,  and 
seized  and  fortified  the  peninsula  of  Meth5ne.  About  the  same  time 
the  bloody  scenes  which  had  occurred  at  Corcyra  two  years  before 
were  repeated  under  circumstances  of  even  greater  atrocity  than 
those  of  427  B.C.  The  democrats,  aided  by  an  Athenian  force,  hav- 
ing suppressed  a  second  armed  insurrection  of  the  oligarchic  party, 
allowed  their  defeated  enemies  to  capitulate  on  promise  of  their 
lives.  Then  they  deliberately  persuaded  a  few  of  the  oligarchs  to 
break  their  parole,  and,  on  pretense  that  this  invalidated  the  whole 
agreement,  opened  the  prisons  and  butchered  such  of  the  three  or 
four  hundred  prisoners  as  did  not  seek  a  speedier  death  by  suicide. 
The  Athenian  general  Eurymedon  made  no  attempt  to  save  the 
unfortunates,  though  he  had  been  a  party  to  the  capitulation,  and 
had  pledged  his  word  that  they  should  be  given  a  fair  trial  at 
Athens. 

Cleon  was  now  at  the  height  of  his  power.  His  ascendency 
in  Athens  was  marked  by  a  characteristic  piece  of  legislation,  show- 
ing his  disregard  for  the  allies.     At  one  blow  he  doubled  their 


SPHACTERIA    AND    DELIUM  S09 

424  B.C. 

tribute.  This  measure  goes  far  to  explain  the  revolts  of  the  next 
few  years. 

The  year  424  B.C.  opened  with  the  brightest  prospects  for  the 
Athenians,  and  for  its  first  few  months  the  tide  of  their  successes 
continued  to  advance.  The  strategus  Nicias,  early  in  the  year, 
captured  the  large  but  rugged  island  of  Cythera,  which  lies  off 
Cape  Malea,  facing  towards  the  Laconian  Gulf.  It  was  at  once 
enrolled  as  a  member  of  the  Delian  League,  and  its  harbors  served 
as  the  starting-point  for  many  raids  on  the  opposite  coast,  till  the 
truth  of  the  old  saying,  "  Well  for  Sparta  if  Cythera  were  sunk  in 
the  sea,"  was  realized  more  keenly  than  ever.  It  was  the  darkest 
moment  of  the  war  for  the  Spartans;  Athens  would  grant  no 
reasonable  terms  of  peace,  and  her  obstinacy  drove  them  to  des- 
perate measures  to  defend  themselves.  To  prevent  the  general 
revolt  of  the  Helots,  which  they  expected,  they  set  the  Crypteia, 
or  secret  police,  working  with  even  more  than  their  usual 
cruelty;  it  is  said  that  as  many  as  two  thousand  victims  were 
secretly  dispatched  by  this  means.  In  their  anxiety  to  strike  a 
blow  which  should  be  felt  at  Athens,  whatever  might  be  the  cost, 
the  ephors  gave  their  consent  to  a  new  and  hazardous  scheme  for 
sapping  the  foundations  of  the  Confederacy  of  Delos.  Athens 
possessed  one  group  of  subject  allies  who  dwelt  on  the  mainland  of 
Europe,  and  could  be  approached  without  that  sea  voyage  which  had 
become  the  terror  of  every  Peloponnesian.  But  these  cities,  the 
towns  of  Chalcidice  and  the  Thracian  shore,  were  separated  from 
Phocis,  the  nearest  state  of  the  Spartan  alliance,  by  a  vast  stretch 
of  land,  comprising  Thessaly,  where  most  of  the  towns  preserved 
a  friendly  neutrality  towards  Athens,  and  the  barbarian  kingdom 
of  Macedonia.  It  had  never  before  occurred  either  to  the  Athenian 
or  the  Spartan  mind  that  the  towns  of  the  Thracian  tribute-district 
might  be  assailed  from  the  inland.  But  now  the  task  was  to  be 
essayed. 

Brasidas,  the  most  enterprising  officer  that  Sparta  pos- 
sessed, was  commissioned  to  levy  a  force  which  should  march 
northward,  and  endeavor  to  rekindle  the  embers  of  war  which  still 
smoldered  to  the  north  of  the  Aegean.  A  few  towns,  which  had 
revolted  along  with  Potidaea,  were  still  maintaining  an  obscure 
warfare  against  Athens,  and  would  serve,  if  once  they  could  be 
reached,  as  a  base  of  operations.  Seven  hundred  Helots,  who  had 
been  promised  their  freedom  if  they  volunteered  for  foreign  service, 


310  GREECE 

424  B.C. 

formed  the  nucleus  of  Brasidas's  army.  So  hazardous  was  the 
expedition  considered  that  no  state  was  asked  to  supply  a  con- 
tingent for  it,  and  individual  recruits  were  collected  in  scanty  num- 
bers by  the  promise  of  high  pay.  Brasidas  was  at  Corinth  with 
about  seventeen  hundred  men  in  hand  when  he  was  drawn  north- 
ward, before  he  was  ready,  by  the  action  of  the  Athenians. 

Still  intent  on  their  new  policy  of  vigorous  action  on  land, 
the  Athenians  had  resolved  to  attempt  the  surprise  of  Megara. 
Some  partisans  of  democracy  within  its  walls  liad  consented,  in  the 
true  Greek  spirit  of  faction,  to  betray  their  city  to  the  enemy. 
One  night  they  threw  open  a  postern  in  the  "  Long  Walls  "  which 
connected  Megara  with  its  port  Nisaea,  and  the  Athenians,  rushing 
in,  secured  the  long  walls,  and  next  day  but  one  captured  Nisaea. 
They  would  probably  have  taken  Megara  itself,  for  the  factions 
in  the  place  had  almost  fallen  to  blows,  if  BrasidaS  had 
not  hurried  up  from  the  Isthmus  with  his  own  force  and  the 
levies  of  Corinth  and  Sicyon.  He  offered  the  Athenians  battle  in 
front  of  Megara,  but  they  would  not  accept  it,  and,  contenting  them- 
selves with  the  capture  of  Nisaea,  went  off  homewards.  Somewhat 
later  in  the  summer  Brasidas,  having  finished  his  preparations, 
started  off  through  Boeotia  and  Phocis,  to  attempt  the  hazardous 
march  which  had  been  planned  for  him. 

The  expedition  to  Megara  was  only  a  foretaste  of  the  energy 
which  Athens  had  determined  to  put  forth  this  year.  She  had 
determined  to  repeat  the  tactics  of  the  heroic  days  of  456  B.C.,  and 
to  endeavor  to  disable  and  overrun  Boeotia  by  a  blow  struck  after 
the  ordinary  campaigning  season  had  closed,  and  when  no  aid  from 
Peloponnesus  could  be  readily  obtained.  The  plan  of  campaign 
was  comprehensi\'e  and  complicated.  Demosthenes  was  to  land  at 
Siphae,  on  the  Corinthian  Gulf,  with  all  the  forces  he  could  collect 
from  the  western  allies  of  Athens.  On  the  same  day  the  general 
Hippocrates,  with  the  entire  home-levy  of  Attica,  was  to  enter 
northeastern  Boeotia,  and  strike  at  Tanagra.  Simultaneously  the 
town  of  Chaeronea  was  to  be  seized  by  a  large  body  of  exiled  Boeo- 
tians of  the  democratic  faction,  who  had  undertaken  to  aid  Athens. 
But  the  plan  was  far  too  intricate.  All  expeditions  where  forces 
starting  from  distant  bases  attempt  to  cooperate  are  especially 
liable  to  the  mischances  of  war.  Thus,  it  came  to  pass  that  the 
attempt  to  seize  Chaeronea  was  betrayed  by  an  informer,  while  in 
the  rest  of  the  scheme  either  Demosthenes  was  over-early  or  Hippoc- 


SPHACTERIA    AND    DELIUM  311 

424  B.  C. 

rates  over-late.  The  former  landed  at  Sipliae  with  his  allies  from 
Naupactus  and  the  western  islands,  and  drew  out  against  himself 
the  whole  force  of  Boeotia ;  for  Hippocrates  was  yet  far  away,  and 
had  not  crossed  the  border.  Being  too  weak  to  fight,  Demosthenes 
re-embarked ;  but  two  days  later  Hippocrates,  marching  by  Oropus 
and  the  shore  of  the  Euboean  Strait,  appeared  in  the  territory  of 
Tanagra.  He  seized  the  temple  and  precinct  of  Apollo  at  Delium, 
close  by  the  seaside,  and  employed  four  days  in  fortifying  it,  and  in 
waiting  for  news  of  the  diversions  which  ought  to  have  synchro- 
nized with  his  invasion.  On  the  fifth,  nothing  having  occurred,  he 
determined  to  'return  home,  but  had  not  got  two  miles  from  Delium 
when  the  Boeotian  army  appeared  on  his  flank.  After  watching 
Demosthenes  depart,  it  had  turned  northeastward,  and  was  in  full 
time  to  attack  Hippocrates.  The  forces  were  not  very  unequal  in 
numbers.  The  Boeotians  had  brought  up  eight  thousand  hoplites, 
a  thousand  cavalry,  and  ten  thousand  light-armed  troops;  the 
Athenians  had  about  the  same  number  of  hoplites,  but  were  con- 
siderably weaker  in  horse,  though  they  had  a  vastly  greater  multi- 
tude of  light-troops.  The  majority  of  the  eleven  Boeotarchs  (or 
generals  of  the  Boeotian  League)  had  been  against  fighting,  but 
Pagondas,  one  of  the  two  Theban  members  of  their  body,  had  over- 
ruled the  majority  and  forced  on  the  combat.  The  army  of  Hippoc- 
rates had  just  time  to  form  up,  fronting  westward  and  with  its 
back  to  the  sea,  when  the  enemy  came  suddenly  over  the  brow  of 
a  hill  and  charged.  Ravines  prevented  the  light-troops  on  the 
flanks  from  engaging,  but  the  main  bodies  of  each  army  closed  and 
fought  desperately  for  some  time.  Pagondas  had  drawn  up  his 
own  Theban  contingent  in  a  dense  column  twenty-five  deep;  the 
rest  of  the  Boeotians  fought  in  the  usual  line-formation.  Hence  it 
came  to  pass  that  while  the  battle  went  hardly  for  the  Boeotians 
on  their  left,  where  the  Thespians  were  completely  routed,  on  their 
right  the  Theban  column  crushed  through  the  Athenian  line,  and 
rolled  it  downhill  in  disorder.  An  opportune  cavalry  charge 
checked  the  victorious  Athenian  right  wing,  and  then  the  whole 
army  of  Hippocrates  wavered  and  broke.  A  few  fled  northward  to 
Delium;  the  rest  took  to  the  hills,  and  saved  themselves  on  the 
spurs  of  Parnes.  Nearly  a  thousand  Athenians,  including  Hippoc- 
rates himself,  had  fallen  in  the  conflict,  while  the  Boeotians  had 
lost  about  half  that  number.  A  fortnight  after  the  battle  the  forti- 
fied post  at  Delium  fell,  the  palisading  with  which  the  Athenians 


312  GREECE 

424    B.C. 

had  surrounded  it  having  been  set  on  fire  by  the  military  engines 
which  the  Boeotians  turned  against  it. 

This  battle  quite  cured  the  Athenians  of  the  taste  for  expedi- 
tions on  land,  which  had  been  growing  on  them  since  the  capture 
of  Sphacteria.  It  also  marked  the  limit  of  their  good  fortune. 
Never  again  did  they  win  a  considerable  success,  or  find  themselves 
in  a  position  to  make  peace  upon  the  terms  which  they  had  so 
rashly  rejected  at  the  moment  of  their  triumph  in  425  B.C. 


Chapter  XXX 

BRASIDAS  IN  THRACE— THE  PEACE  OF  NICIAS, 
424-421  B.C. 

EVEN  before  the  battle  of  Delium  had  been  fought,  the  end 
of  the  good  fortune  of  Athens  had  been  marked  by  other 
events.  The  wild  and  useless  expedition  to  Sicily  had  come 
to  a  sudden  termination.  The  Sicilian  towns  had  grown  tired  of 
their  purposeless  strife,  and  concluded  a  general  peace  at  Gela ; 
when  this  had  taken  place  nothing  remained  for  the  Athenian 
squadron  but  to  return  home.  Sophocles  and  Eurymedon,  its  com- 
manders, were  prosecuted,  unjustly  enough,  on  their  return,  for 
having  failed  to  prolong  the  war;  they  were  condemned,  the  one 
to  go  into  exile,  and  the  other  to  pay  a  heavy  fine.  About  the 
same  time  troubles  appeared  to  be  brewing  in  Asia  Minor;  the 
exiled  Lesbian  oligarchs  got  together  in  some  force,  and  seized  the 
towns  of  Sigeum  and  Antandrus  in  the  Troad ;  while  at  the  same 
time  a  faction  of  the  Samians,  who  had  established  themselves  at 
Anaea,  vexed  the  neighboring  Ionian  towns. 

But  these  symptoms  of  rebellion  in  the  eastern  districts  of  the 
Athenian  empire  were  of  small  consequence  compared  with  the 
troubles  which  were  now  rising  in  the  north.  We  have  already 
spoken  of  the  departure  from  Corinth  of  Brasidas  and  his  seventeen 
hundred  Peloponnesian  adventurers.  Pushing  on  for  some  time 
through  friendly  territory,  they  met  their  first  difficulties  on  the 
Thessalian  frontier.  Here  the  envoys  of  the  Thessalian  towns 
which  favored  Athens  forbade  the  army  to  proceed.  The  Brasidas 
cajoled  them  with  feigned  negotiations,  and  then  slipped  past  them 
and  crossed  the  great  plain  in  three  forced  marches.  He  was  in 
the  Perrhaebean  hills,  and  far  on  his  way  towards  Macedonia, 
before  his  stratagem  was  detected.  In  Macedonia  he  joined  with 
King  Perdiccas,  an  old  enemy  of  Athens,  who  granted  him  a  free 
passage  into  Chalcidice.  Strengthening  himself  with  the  troops  of 
the  revolted  towns  in  that  direction,  Brasidas  at  once  commenced  a 

313 


314  GREECE 

424   B.C. 

campaign  against  the  allies  of  Athens.  He  met  with  little  active  re- 
sistance; Ecanthus  and  Staglrns  fell  into  his  hands  before  the 
winter  arrived,  and  even  after  the  cold  weather  had  set  in  the  Spar- 
tan kept  the  field.  His  next  attack  was  directed  against  Amphipolis, 
the  new  and  flourishing  Athenian  colony  on  the  Strymon,  which 
commanded  the  only  road  that  led  eastwards  from  Chalcidice 
towards  the  cities  of  the  Thracian  coast,  H  once  Amphipolis  and 
its  all-important  bridge  were  in  his  hands,  no  limit  could  be  set 
to  the  eastward  extension  of  the  revolt.  Coming  unexpectedly 
down  to  the  Strymon,  Brasidas  seized  the  bridge  by  a  daring  coup 
de  main  during  a  snowstorm.  He  laid  hands  on  many  of  the 
Amphipolitans  who  dwelt  without  the  city  walls,  and  on  all  the 
flocks  and  herds  of  the  community.  Moved  with  fear  for  their 
property  and  their  friends,  a  party  in  the  town  proposed  a  sur- 
render; the  Athenian  governor  was  unable  to  command  obedience, 
and  the  gates  were  thrown  open.  The  historian  Thucydides,  who 
was  in  command  of  a  small  Athenian  squadron  which  lay  at  Thasos, 
arrived  too  late  to  save  the  place.  So  rapidly  had  events  gone  on, 
that  though  only  one  day's  sail  from  the  town,  he  failed  to  come  up 
in  time,  and  only  succeeded  in  preserving  for  Athens  Eion,  the  port 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Strymon,  For  his  tardiness,  which  was  prob- 
ably more  the  result  of  ill-luck  than  of  negligence,  Thucydides  was 
prosecuted  and  exiled  by  a  decree  proposed  by  Cleon. 

Brasidas  had  not  yet  completed  the  full  measure  of  his  suc- 
cesses. Before  the  winter  was  done  he  had  gained  possession  of 
nearly  all  the  towns  which  lie  on  the  coast  of  Mount  Athos,  and 
also  of  Torone  on  the  central  headland  of  the  Chalcidic  peninsula. 
These  surrenders  struck  terror  into  the  hearts  of  the  Athenians, 
not  merely  on  account  of  the  actual  importance  of  the  losses — 
though  these  were  heavy  enough — but  as  showing  the  utter  dis- 
loyalty which  pervaded  the  whole  body  of  their  subject  allies. 
When  Brasidas  presented  himself  before  the  walls  of  a  town,  there 
was  always  an  oligarchic  party  which  was  zealous  to  admit  him, 
while  the  democratic  faction,  which  should  naturally  have  been 
friendly  to  Athens,  showed  at  most  a  passive  disinclination  to 
revolt,  and  would  not  strike  a  blow  for  its  suzerain.  Hardly  a 
single  town  preserved  its  allegiance  when  attacked,  unless  there 
happened  to  be  an  Athenian  garrison  within  its  walls.  The  person- 
ality of  Brasidas  aided  to  no  small  extent  in  securing  his  successes ; 
he  was  no  less  distinguished  for  tact  than  for  courage,  and  won 


BRASIDAS    AND    NICIAS  315 

424   B.C. 

golden  opinions  by  his  generosity,  moderation,  and  good  faith. 
The  power  of  his  name  began  to  grow  mighty  in  Chalcidice,  and 
it  soon  became  evident  that  unless  he  were  promptly  crushed,  or 
disarmed  by  the  conclusion  of  a  general  peace,  Athens  would  lose 
every  one  of  her  tributaries  to  the  north  of  the  Aegean. 

The  battle  of  Delium  had  stripped  Athens  of  her  self-con- 
fidence; the  loss  of  Amphipolis  and  Torone  had  made  her  contem- 
plate with  equanimity  the  prospect  of  a  peace.  Accordingly  when, 
early  in  the  next  spring  (423  B.C.),  Sparta  again  made  overtures 
for  a  pacification,  the  Athenian  Ecclesia  for  once  showed  itself 
reasonable.  To  afiford  an  opportunity  for  the  conclusion  of  a  final 
and  definitive  peace,  the  two  powers  agreed  to  a  truce  for  twelve 
months.  For  the  first  time  for  eight  years  the  Athenians  w^ere  able 
to  put  their  neglected  fields  under  the  plow,  with  a  reasonable 
prospect  of  reaping  what  they  had  sown.  Nor  was  the  boon 
less  to  the  maritime  states  of  Peloponnesus,  who  could  now  re- 
sume the  coasting  trade  which  had  been  forbidden  to  them  for 
so  long. 

Matters  seemed  in  a  fair  way  towards  peace,  when  an  un- 
expected complication  occurred  to  postpone  the  negotiations.  By 
the  terms  of  the  truce  each  party  w^as  to  retain  in  its  hands  the 
places  belonging  to  the  enemy  which  it  had  captured;  Thebes,  for 
instance,  still  held  Plataea,  and  Athens  Cythera  and  Pylos.  But  at 
the  very  moment  of  the  ratification  of  the  truce,  the  important 
town  of  Sci5ne,  in  Chalcidice,  opened  its  gates  to  Brasidas;  the 
Athenians  insisted  that  the  place  ought  to  be  restored  to  them,  while 
Brasidas  maintained  that,  as  the  truce  was  unknown  in  Thrace 
when  the  place  revolted,  it  did  not  come  under  the  terms  of  the 
agreement.  While  this  matter  was  in  dispute,  the  still  more  im- 
portant city  of  Mende,  the  third  in  size  of  the  Chalcidian  commu- 
nities, followed  the  example  of  Scione.  These  events  so  excited 
the  Athenian  Ecclesia  that  it  voted,  on  the  motion  of  Cleon,  that 
an  expedition  should  be  sent  against  Scione,  and  that,  when  the 
town  was  taken,  its  population  should  be  exterminated. 

Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  although  the  truce  was  observed  in 
Greece,  and  all  around  the  southern  Aegean,  war  still  continued  in 
the  north.  Nicias  sailed  with  a  considerable  armament  to  Thrace, 
and  recaptured  Mende ;  but  he  failed  at  Scione,  and  his  troops  w^ere 
still  lying  before  its  walls  when  the  year's  truce  expired,  early  in 
423  B.C.      Hostilities  then  recommenced  along  the  whole  line  of 


316  GREECE 

422    B.C. 

contact  between  Athens  and  her  enemies ;  but  at  home  Httle  of  impor- 
tance occurred,  save  that  the  fortress  of  Panactum,  which  com- 
manded one  of  the  passes  of  Cithaeron,  fell  by  treachery  into  the 
hands  of  the  Boeotians. 

In  Chalcidice,  however,  the  war  came  to  its  head.  Early  in 
the  year  Cleon  appeared  before  Scione,  at  the  head  of  a  considerable 
army.  His  second  venture  in  generalship  was  due  to  much  the 
same  causes  as  his  first;  now,  as  in  425  B.C.,  he  had  put  himself 
at  the  head  of  the  party  of  action,  and  was  consequently  made 
responsible  for  the  conduct  of  the  war.  Probably  the  democracy 
had  come  to  believe  in  his  good  luck,  and  hoped  that,  by  some 
fortunate  chance,  he  would  put  down  Brasidas  as  easily  as  he  had 
conquered  Sphacteria.  Cleon's  first  operations  were  not  badly 
planned;  he  succeeded  in  retaking  Torone  and  Galepsus,  and  then 
landed  at  Eion,  and  sat  down  opposite  Amphipolis,  where  Brasidas 
had  concentrated  the  main  part  of  his  forces.  There  he  waited, 
while  reinforcements  of  light-troops  were  being  collected  from 
Thrace;  for  he  was  weak  in  that  arm,  and  very  wisely  refused  to 
give  battle  till  he  was  raised  to  an  equality  with  the  enemy.  But 
the  Athenian  hoplites  grumbled  at  their  commander's  inaction,  and 
the  tanner,  who  lived  by  following  every  breath  of  public  opinion, 
did  not  dare  to  disregard  their  murmurings.  Accordingly  he  started 
off  with  his  whole  force  to  reconnoiter  the  position  of  Brasidas,  and 
to  offer  him  battle.  Brasidas  drew  his  army  into  the  town,  and 
kept  perfectly  quiet,  allowing  the  Athenians  to  march  past  his  front 
without  any  molestation.  Cleon  rashly  concluded  that  the  enemy 
would  not  fight,  and  neglected  every  military  precaution ;  he  himself 
went  on  ahead  to  explore  the  countryside  to  the  north,  while  he 
left  his  army  halted  within  a  few  score  yards  of  the  walls  of 
Amphipolis,  but  not  drawn  up  in  battle  array.  Presently  news 
was  sent  on  to  the  demagogue  that  the  streets  near  the  gates  of  the 
town  were  crowded  with  armed  men,  and  that  an  attack  was  im- 
pending. He  at  once  hurried  back  to  join  his  men,  and  ordered 
the  army  to  retire  and  take  ground  to  its  left — a  command  which 
caused  the  Athenians  to  defile  once  more  before  the  gates  of  the 
town. 

This  was  what  Brasidas  had  been  expecting.  "  I  see,"  he 
cried,  "  that  those  troops  will  not  stand ;  I  know  it  from  the  waver- 
ing of  their  spears ;  "  and  when  the  Aflienian  center  was  opposite 
him,  h^  launched  a  column  out  of  each  gate,  and  charged   the 


BRASIDASANDNICIAS  317 

422  B.C. 

enemy's  line  of  march.  Cleon's  men  were  caught  while  executing 
a  hurried  movement  of  retreat,  with  their  shieldless  side  exposed  to 
the  enemy.  Many  of  therii  broke  at  the  first  onset;  the  left  wing, 
which  headed  the  line  of  march,  fled  back  to  Eion  without  suffer- 
ing much  loss ;  but  the  right  wing  and  the  center,  who  were  driven 
off  their  line  of  retreat  by  Brasidas's  charge,  were  very  severely 
handled.  Cleon  turned  to  fly,  like  the  majority  of  his  followers, 
and  was  speared  as  he  ran  by  a  Thracian  peltast.  Only  the 
Athenian  right  wing  made  any  attempt  at  resistance,  and  that  body 
was  soon  overwhelmed  by  numbers,  and  scattered  by  a  vigorous 
cavalry  charge.  The  rout  was  very  bloody.  Six  hundred  Atheni- 
ans had  fallen,  and  not  a  dozen  of  their  opponents ;  but  among  the 
few  whose  loss  the  victors  had  to  mourn  was  their  general.  Brasi- 
das  had  received  a  spear-thrust  in  the  side,  and  only  lived  long 
enough  to  hear  that  his  victory  was  complete.  The  Amphipolitans 
buried  him  with  the  most  splendid  funeral  rites,  set  up  a  temple  to 
his  memory,  and  vowed  to  honor  him  as  their  oekist,  instead  of 
Hagnon,  the  original  Athenian  founder  of  the  city. 

The  deaths  of  Cleon  and  Brasidas  removed  the  chief  obstacles 
to  a  general  peace.  When  the  Spartan  was  gone,  the  revolt  in 
Chalcidice  ceased  to  spread,  for  it  was  his  personal  influence  which 
had  from  the  first  been  its  mainstay.  At  home  in  Sparta  also 
Brasidas  had  always  been  at  the  head  of  the  party  of  action,  and  his 
death  greatly  weakened  its  influence.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
Cleon  was  removed,  the  strongest  advocate  of  war  in  the  Athenian 
Ecclesia  disappeared,  and  the  partisans  of  peace  could  bring  for- 
ward their  proposals  without  any  fear  of  being  overwhelmed  by  his 
blustering  eloquence.  The  negotiations  whidi  had  been  inter- 
rupted by  the  events  in  Thrace  were  soon  resumed,  and  brought  to 
a  successful  issue.  The  Spartan  king  Pleistoanax,  who  had  lately 
been  restored  after  more  than  twenty  years  of  exile,  and 
the  Athenian  general  Nicias,  were  mainly  instrumental  in  the 
pacification,  to  which  the  latter  has  given  his  name.  The  treaty 
provided  for  a  fifty  years'  peace,  and  enjoined  a  mutual  restoration 
of  prisoners  and  of  places  captured  during  the  war,  but  this  arrange- 
ment was  not  perfectly  carried  out;  for  the  Thebans  refused  to 
give  up  Plataea,  on  the  ground  that  it  had  not  been  taken  by 
force,  but  had  surrendered  on  capitulation.  On  a  similar  plea, 
therefore,  Athens  refused  to  give  up  the  Corinthian  colonies  of 
Sollium  and  Anactorium,  and  the  Megarian  port  of  Nisaea.     In 


318  GREECE 

421   B.C. 

her  anxiety  to  secure  the  evacuation  of  the  Athenian  strongholds 
around  Peloponnesus,  and  the  release  of  the  prisoners  of  Sphac- 
teria,  .Sparta  sacrificed  the  interests  of  the  Chalcidian  cities  whom 
she  had  tempted  to  revolt ;  she  promised  to  surrender  Amphipolis 
in  return  for  Pylos  and  Cythera,  and  to  break  off  her  alliance  with 
the  other  Thraceward  cities.  In  their  behalf  she  only  stipulated 
that  Athens  should  not  coerce  them  by  force,  though  she  might,  if 
she  could,  induce  them  to  re-enter  the  Delian  League  of  their  own 
free  will.^  Scione,  which  was  still  being  invested  by  an  Athenian 
army,  was  left  to  take  its  chance;  and  when  it  fell,  a  few  months 
later,  suffered  the  penalty  which  had  been  decreed  for  it  eighteen 
months  before  by  the  law  of  Cleon;  its  men  were  slain  and  its 
women  sold  as  slaves.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Amphipolis  was  never 
given  up  to  the  Athenians,  for  Clearidas,  who  had  succeeded  Brasi- 
das  in  command,  declared  that  he  was  not  strong  enough  to  sur- 
render it  contrary  to  the  will  of  its  inhabitants,  and  contented 
himself  with  returning  home  with  his  Peloponnesian  troops.  In 
consequence  of  this  infraction  of  the  treaty,  the  Athenians  refused 
to  evacuate  Pylos  or  Cythera.  Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  although 
the  prisoners  on  both  sides  were  restored,  the  other  clauses  of  the 
peace  of  Nicias  were  not  fully  carried  out,  and  the  main  result  of 
the  pacification  was  to  leave  each  party  in  possession  of  just  so 
much  as  it  was  holding  at  the  moment  of  the  suspension  of  hostili- 
ties. Several  of  the  most  important  allies  of  Sparta  considered 
that  they  had  been  betrayed  by  their  leader,  and  refused  to  ratify 
the  treaty.  The  Thebans,  therefore,  contented  themselves  with 
concluding  a  temporary  armistice  with  Athens,  which  was  renew- 
able every  ten  days,  and  might  at  any  moment  be  denounced  at 
that  short  notice.  The  Megarians  and  Corinthians  made  no  formal 
truce  at  all,  but  merely  abstained  from  hostilities. 

Thus  the  first  stage  of  the  Peloponnesian  war  came  to  an  end, 
just  ten  years  after  the  first  invasion  of  Attica  by  Archidamus  in 
431  B.C.  Its  results  had  been  almost  purely  negative;  a  vast 
([uantity  of  blood  and  treasure  had  been  wasted  on  each  side,  but 
to  no  great  purpose.  The  Athenian  naval  power  was  unimpaired, 
and  the  Confederacy  of  Delos,  though  shaken  by  the  successful 
revolt  of  Amphipolis  and  the   Thraceward  towns,   was  still   left 

^  The  Chalcidian  towns  thus  granted  a  qualified  freedom  were  Olynthus, 
Acanthus,  Staglrus,  Argilus,  Sane,  Singus,  and  a  few  more.  Amphipolis,  being 
never  recovered  by  Athens,  shared  their  lot. 


BRASIDAS    AND    NICIAS  319 

421   B.C. 

subsisting.  On  the  other  hand,  the  attempts  of  Athens  to  accom- 
pHsh  anything  on  land  had  entirely  failed,  and  the  defensive  policy 
of  Pericles  had  been  so  far  justified.  Well  would  it  have  been  for 
Athens  if  her  citizens  had  taken  the  lesson  to  heart,  and  contented 
themselves  with  having  escaped  so  easily  from  the  greatest  war 
they  had  ever  known. 


Chapter  XXXI 

TRUCE  OF  NICIAS,  421-416  B.C. 

THE  period  during  which  the  truce  of  Nicias  was  more  or 
less  observed  amounted  to  nearly  seven  years,  but  they 
are  hardly  to  be  reckoned  as  a  time  of  peace.  "  It  is 
true,"  says  Thucydides,  "  that  the  Athenians  and  Lacedaemonians 
abstained  for  six  years  and  ten  months  from  marching  against  each 
other's  territory,  but  with  that  exception  they  did  each  other  as 
much  damage  as  they  could.  They  actually  came  into  contact  at 
Mantinea  and  Epidaurus,  and  all  the  time  hostilities  were  proceed- 
ing in  Thrace  just  as  before;  so  that  if  anyone  objects  to  consider 
it  a  time  of  war,  he  will  not  be  estimating  it  rightly."  ^ 

But  though  there  was  no  actual  interval  of  peace  after  the 
treaty  of  421  b.c.^  yet  the  main  action  of  the  great  drama  stood 
still,  and  the  events  of  the  years  421-415  B.C.  formed  a  strange 
and  incoherent  interlude  between  the  two  acts  of  the  Peloponnesian 
war.  The  parties  in  the  struggle  are  grouped  differently,  a  new  set 
of  motives  influence  the  actors,  and  the  original  causes  and  objects 
of  the  war  are  lost  sight  of. 

One  of  the  chief  reasons  which  had  made  Sparta  anxious  to 
conclude  peace  with  Athens  was  the  fact  that  a  thirty  years'  truce 
with  Argos,  which  had  been  concluded  in  451  B.C.,  was  now  draw- 
ing to  an  end,  and  that  it  was  strongly  suspected  that  the  Argives 
were  disposed  to  try  the  fortune  of  war.  The  ephors  had  been 
anxious  to  end  one  conflict  before  they  were  involved  in  another. 
Their  suspicions  were  not  misplaced.  Argos  had  accumulated 
new  strength  in  her  thirty  years  of  rest,  and  thought  that  Sparta 
was  so  weakened  and  brought  down  by  ten  years  of  warfare  that 
she  might  be  faced  with  ease.  Moreover,  the  Argive  government 
had  been  sounding  all  the  Peloponnesian  states  which  were  sup- 
posed to  have  a  grudge  against  Sparta,  and  thought  that  they 
could  find  powerful  allies.  The  Corinthians,  who  were  grievously 
offended  at  the  sacrifice  of  their  colonies  of  Sollium  and  Anac- 

1  Thuc.  V.  25,  26. 
390 


TRUCE    OF    NICIAS  321 

421-420   B.C. 

torium  to  Athens;  the  Mantineans,  who  had  been  frustrated  by 
Sparta  in  an  attempt  to  subdue  their  smaller  neighbors,  and  the 
Eleans,  who  had  also  plunged  into  a  quarrel  with  Sparta  concerning 
the  border-town  of  Lepreum,  were  all  believed  to  be  ready  to  join 
jn  a  rising  to  do  away  with  the  Lacedaemonian  hegemony  in  the 
Peloponnesus.  Amphipolis  and  the  states  of  Chalcidice  were 
thought  to  cherish  similar  feelings,  owing  to  the  way  in  which  they 
were  abandoned  to  the  mercy  of  Athens  by  the  peace  of  Nicias. 

Ambassadors  were  soon  passing  from  state  to  state,  with  the 
final  result  that  Argos,  Elis,  Mantinea,  and  the  Chalcidians  entered 
into  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance,  which  soon  brought  them 
into  hostile  contact  with  Sparta.  Corinth  drew  back,  and  would 
not  commit  herself  to  war  with  her  old  suzerain,  while  the  majority 
of  the  smaller  states  of  Peloponnesus  showed  no  desire  to  break 
with  their  Laconian  allies. 

Hostilities  commenced,  late  in  the  summer  of  421  B.C.,  by  a 
raid  of  King  Pleistoanax  into  Arcadia,  when  he  took  several  places 
belonging  to  Mantinea.  But  nothing  of  importance  had  been 
accomplished  when  the  coming  of  winter  brought  about  a  suspen- 
sion of  operations. 

By  the  outbreak  of  this  war  Athens  was  compelled  to  make  her 
choice  between  two  policies.  It  was  doubtful  whether  she  would 
do  more  wisely  by  standing  aside  from  the  struggle,  and  concentra- 
ting her  energies  on  the  recovery  of  the  revolted  cities  of  Chalcidice, 
or  by  taking  advantage  of  Sparta's  difficulties  and  renewing  hostili- 
ties. In  justification  of  the  latter  course,  it  could  be  argued  that 
the  Lacedaemonians  had  failed  to  observe  the  stipulations  of  the 
treaty,  having  neither  restored  Amphipolis  nor  compelled  their 
Boeotian  and  Corinthian  allies  to  ratify  the  terms  of  peace.  On 
the  other  side,  it  was  urged  by  Nicias  and  the  philo-Spartan  party 
that,  before  engaging  in  another  war,  Athens  should  reconquer 
what  she  had  lost,  and  that  the  state  was  above  all  things  in  need  of 
a  period  of  rest,  to  bring  her  ruined  countryside  once  more  into 
cultivation.  When  the  summer  of  420  B.C.  arrived,  ambassadors 
both  from  Argos  and  from  Sparta  appeared  at  Athens  to  plead 
respectively  the  causes  of  war  and  of  peace.  Nicias  and  his  party 
would  probably  have  prevailed,  and  the  Argive  embassy  would  have 
been  dismissed,  had  it  not  been  for  the  machinations  of  a  young 
statesman  who  now  stood  forward  prominently  for  the  first  time 
on  the  political  stage. 


322  GREECE 

420    B.C. 

Alcibiades,  the  son  of  Cleinias,  was  at  this  moment  still  a 
young  man.  "  In  any  other  state  than  Athens,"  says  Thucydides, 
"  he  would  have  been  considered  far  too  young  to  become  a  serious 
figure  in  politics,"  But  at  Athens  he  had  already  made  himself  a 
name,  and  was  a  well-known  figure  on  the  Bema.  He  came  of 
an  ancient  and  wealthy  stock,  which  traced  its  origin  back  to  the 
old  Salaminian  kings,  and  was  placed  by  his  position  among  the 
first  families  of  Athens.  His  handsome  person  and  ready  wit 
made  him  the  idol  of  the  "  gilded  youth  "  of  the  city,  and  his  reck- 
less love  of  adventure  and  mischief  was  continually  bringing  him 
into  notice.  Any  drunken  escapade,  any  malicious  practical  joke, 
any  ingenious  piece  of  fooling  that  was  perpetrated  in  Athens,  was 
instantly  credited  to  his  account.  He  was  continually  indulging 
in  freaks  that  put  him  in  danger  of  the  law  courts ;  but  offenses  that 
would  have  brought  fine  and  imprisonment  on  any  other  citizen 
were  visited  lightly  on  the  spoiled  child  of  the  people.  His  profligacy 
and  insolence  raised  up  many  enemies,  but  with  the  masses  he  was 
immensely  popular.  His  utter  want  of  decorum  only  amused  them. 
When  he  spoke  before  the  Ecclesia  with  a  pet  quail  tucked  under 
his  arm,  it  was  considered  an  excellent  jest ;  when  in  the  law  court 
he  casually  snatched  up  and  destroyed  the  indictment  brought 
against  one  of  his  friends,  he  was  laughed  at  and  not  prosecuted. 
But  in  his  more  serious  moments  Alcibiades  frequently  turned  to 
politics,  which  he  treated  as  an  ingenious  and  amusing  game,  well 
suited  for  the  display  of  his  abilities.  As  a  politician  he  might 
have  been  described  as  a  second  Themistocles,  had  not  his  inherent 
frivolity  and  fickleness  placed  him  far  below  the  great  statesman 
of  the  times  of  the  Persian  war;  but  he  had  all  the  readiness, 
ingenuity,  and  persuasive  power  of  his  prototype.  Like  Themis- 
tocles he  was  a  strong  democrat.  It  is  true  that  on  his  first  entry 
into  political  life  he  had  come  forward  as  an  oligarch  and  a  friend 
of  Sparta,  and  put  his  good  offices  at  the  disposal  of  the  prisoners 
of  Sphacteria;  but  the  respectable  Nicias  and  his  philo-Spartan 
friends  were  appalled  at  the  prospect  of  having  to  co-operate  with 
a  colleague  of  such  approved  disreputability ;  they  rejected  his  ad- 
vances, and  advised  the  Spartans  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  him. 
Alcibiades  immediately  performed  a  political  somersault,  and 
promptly  appeared  as  an  ardent  democrat.  It  became  his  ambition 
to  take  up  the  fallen  mantle  of  Cleon,  and  to  be  known  as  the 
people's  friend  and  the  mouthpiece  of  public  opinion.     He  had  not 


TRUCE    OF    NICIAS  323 

420  B.C. 

only  greater  natural  abilities  than  Cleon,  but  a  double  portion  of 
his  unscrupulousness.  He  soon  became  a  considerable  power  in 
politics,  and  would  have  risen  to  the  highest  place  if  his  levity  and 
reckless  vanity  had  not  been  too  well  known. 

In  420  B.C.  Alcibiades  was  set  on  causing  the  Spartan  embassy 
to  Athens  to  fail,  and  on  bringing  about  an  alliance  with  Argos. 
His  plan  was  characterized  by  shameless  duplicity.  He  secretly 
visited  the  Lacedaemonian  envoys,  and  assured  them  that  if  they 
acknowledged  that  they  possessed  full  powers  to  agree  to  any  terms 
of  alliance  which  Athens  might  propose,  they  would  find  themselves 
forced  to  grant  more  than  they  could  wish.  But  if  they  would  say 
that  they  were  merely  authorized  to  report  the  Athenian  proposals 
to  the  ephors,  he  would  throw  his  personal  influence  on  to  their 
side,  and  obtain  for  them  the  restoration  of  Pylos,  and  anything 
else  that  they  might  desire.  The  unwary  ambassadors  believed  his 
protestations;  and,  although  they  had  announced  only  a  few  days 
before  that  they  possessed  full  powers  to  treat,  declared  at  the 
next  meeting  of  the  Ecclesia  that  no  such  authority  had  been 
granted  to  them.  Then  Alcibiades  arose,  and  to  the  dismay  of  the 
simple  Spartans  proceeded  to  denounce  them  to  the  people  as  reck- 
less deceivers,  who  said  one  thing  one  day  and  another  the  next, 
and  whose  overtures  should  be  received  with  contempt.  The 
people  shouted  applause,  and  the  embassy  was  wrecked.  A  few 
days  later  a  decree  was  passed  whereby  Athens  concluded  an 
offensive  and  defensive  alliance  for  a  hundred  years  with  Argos, 
Elis,  and  IMantinea.  All  that  Nicias,  who  opposed  the  motion  with 
such  energy  as  he  possessed,  could  obtain,  was  that  war  with  Sparta 
was  not  actually  declared,  nor  the  truce  formally  denounced.  But 
to  make  alliance  with  Argos  was  not  very  remote  from  entering 
into  hostilities  with  Lacedaemon. 

The  next  two  years  were  occupied  by  a  desultory  and  sporadic 
war  in  Peloponnesus,  in  which  both  sides  displayed  an  astonishing 
want  of  generalship  and  decision.  The  new  confederacy  possessed 
many  advantages.  Mantinea  almost  blocked  the  way  from  Sparta 
to  Corinth  and  the  other  towns  which  remained  faithful  to  their 
old  suzerain;  Elis  and  Argos  threatened  it  on  each  flank;  yet, 
whenever  the  Spartans  made  a  serious  attempt  to  force  their  way 
northward,  they  invariably  succeeded.  The  allies  could  never 
agree  for  a  common  plan  of  campaign ;  the  Eleans  wished  to  attack 
Lepreum  and  to  carry  the  war  into  Messenia,  while  the  Argives 


324  GREECE 

418   B.C. 

were  intent  on  subduing  their  neighbors  of  Epidaurus  and  PhHus, 
and  the  Mantineans  thought  only  of  extending  their  power  in 
Central  Arcadia.  But  this  want  of  common  purpose  among  the 
allies  led  to  no  immediate  disaster,  for  the  Spartan  King  Agis,  who 
directed  the  movements  of  the  enemy,  was  quite  unequal  to  his 
position.  After  many  indecisive  moves,  he  at  last,  in  the  summer 
of  418  B.C.,  succeeded  in  bringing  matters  to  a  head.  While  he 
himself,  with  the  forces  of  Laconia  and  his  Arcadian  allies,  slipped 
past  Mantinea  and  appeared  at  the  mouth  of  the  southernmost  of 
the  three  passes  which  lead  down  into  the  Argive  plain,  a  second 
column  from  Corinth  and  Phlius  debouched  by  the  central  pass, 
and  a  large  body  from  the  north,  mainly  consisting  of  Boeotians 
and  Megarians,  advanced  down  the  main  road  which  leads  by 
Nemea.  The  Argives  were  completely  outgeneraled  and  out- 
numbered, though  they  had  received  considerable  contingents  from 
Elis  and  Mantinea.  Their  army  was,  however,  bent  on  fighting, 
and  would  doubtless  have  suffered  a  complete  disaster  if  two  of 
their  leaders  had  not  opened  negotiations  for  a  peace  with  Agis. 
Instead  of  using  the  advantages  of  his  position,  the  Spartan  king 
consented  to  treat,  on  the  assurance  that  Argos  was  ready  to  lay 
down  her  arms,  and  submit  her  disputes  with  Sparta  to  arbitration. 
He  therefore  dismissed  his  army,  and  permitted  the  Argives  to 
escape.  A  few  days  later  there  arrived  at  Argos  a  considerable 
Athenian  force  under  Laches;  and  on  very  slight  persuasion  the 
Argive  democracy  was  induced  to  disavow  the  agreement  with 
Agis,  on  the  pretext  that  it  had  been  concluded  without  the  consent 
of  their  allies,  and  to  recommence  hostilities.  Thus  the  Spartans 
lost  all  the  fruits  of  their  campaign  through  the  simplicity  of  their 
king. 

While  the  Peloponnesians  were  engaged  in  these  operations, 
Athens  had  been  halting  between  the  two  policies  that  were  open 
to  her.  She  had  not  thrown  herself  heart  and  soul  into  the  Argive 
alliance,  nor  had  she  taken  decisive  measures  to  reconquer  the 
rebellious  cities  of  Chalcidice.  At  home  she  had  offended  Sparta, 
without  materially  harming  her;  for  although  the  peace  of  Nicias 
was  still  so  far  observed  that  her  fleets  refrained  from  ravaging 
Laconia,  yet  small  forces  were  continually  sent  to  aid  the  Argives, 
and  to  support  Athenian  interests  in  other  parts  of  Peloponnesus. 
In  these  operations  Alcibiades  made  his  first  essays  in  military  com- 
mand, and  gained  some  credit  for  establishing  the  Athenian  party 


TRUCE    OF    NICIAS  325 

418   B.C. 

in  possession  of  the  Achaian  town  of  Patrae.  Meanwhile  a  desul- 
tory warfare  was  still  going  on  in  Chalcidice;  but  since  the  at- 
tention of  Athens  was  mainly  directed  towards  the  south,  no 
adequate  force  was  directed  against  Amphipolis  or  Olynthus.  In 
consequence  nothing  more  was  recovered  after  the  capture  of 
Scione,  and  several  small  towns  joined  the  rebels.  At  last  the 
Athenians  acknowledged  their  weakness  in  this  quarter  by  con- 
cluding a  truce,  renewable  every  ten  days,  with  their  revolted 
subjects. 

The  Spartan  ephors  had  been  greatly  angered  by  the  failure  of 
Agis  at  Argos;  they  had  actually  proposed  to  demolish  his  house 
and  fine  him  ten  thousand  drachmae,  but  this  punishment  was  not 
carried  out;  it  was  merely  enacted  that  when  again  in  command 
he  should  be  bound  to  refer  all  important  matters  to  a  council  of 
war — an  infringement  of  the  royal  prerogative  such  as  had  not 
before  been  known  in  Sparta.  In  spite,  however,  of  his  unpopu- 
larity, he  was  still  retained  in  command,  owing  to  the  general  dis- 
trust felt  for  his  colleague  Pleistoanax.  Burning  to  avenge  the 
perjury  of  the  Argives,  Agis  resolved  to  give  them  battle  whenever 
he  found  them.  Although  he  had  not  been  joined  by  any  of  his 
allies  except  the  Tegeans  and  Heraeans,  he  brought  the  enemy  to 
action  not  far  from  Mantinea.  The  Argives  and  Mantineans  in 
full  force,  together  with  their  subject  allies  and  a  body  of  thirteen 
hundred  Athenians,  were  opposed  to  him ;  the  Eleans  were  absent, 
engaged  in  operations  against  Lepreum. 

The  battle  of  Mantinea  was  a  fair  stand-up  fight  between  two 
armies  of  almost  equal  force,  in  which  the  troops  met  front  to  front 
without  any  attempt  to  win  tactical  advantages,  and  settled  the  day 
in  hand-to-hand  fighting.  Each  side  was  found  to  have  slightly 
outflanked  its  enemy  on  the  right.^  The  Tegeans  on  the  Spartan 
right  stretched  beyond  the  Athenians,  who  held  the  left  wing  in  the 
Argive  army;  similarly  the  Mantineans  had  outflanked  the  division 
of  Laconian  Perioeci,  who  formed  the  Spartan  left.  In  each  case  the 
body  that  was  outflanked  suffered  a  disaster,  but  the  fate  of  the  La- 
conians  was  the  worst,  for  Agis  had  contrived  to  cause  a  gap  be- 
tween his  center  and  his  left  wing,  by  ordering  the  latter  to  take 

2  There  was  always  a  tendency  in  Greek  armies  to  advance  taking  ground 
slightly  to  the  right,  so  as  to  outflank  the  enemy  at  the  extreme  right  wing.  The 
last  hoplite  on  the  right  wing  pushed  forward  to  the  right,  in  order  to  avoid  ex- 
posing his  unshielded  side  to  the  enemy;  his  neighbors  carried  on  the  movement 
till  it  went  all  down  the  line. 


326  GREECE 

418   B.C. 

ground  to  the  left  at  the  moment  of  charging.  Into  the  interval  thus 
opened  a  regiment  of  a  thousand  picked  Argive  troops  made  their 
way ;  they  turned  the  defeat  of  the  Spartan  left  wing  into  a  rout,  and 
pushed  on  into  the  camp  of  Agis,  where  they  cut  the  baggage- 
guard  to  pieces.  Meanwhile  the  native  Spartan  troops  in  the 
center  had  smashed  to  atoms  the  line  opposed  to  them,  where  the 
main  body  of  the  Argives,  and  the  Argive  Perioeci  from  Orneae 
and  Cleonae,  were  posted.  Agis  then  assisted  the  Tegeaiis  to  com- 
plete the  rout  of  the  Athenians,  and  finally  turned  on  the  victorious 
right  wing  of  the  enemy,  where  he  cut  up  the  JNIantineans  severely, 
and  forced  the  Argive  thousand  off  the  field. 

Though  tactically  beaten,  through  the  mismanagement  of 
Agis,  the  Spartans  fairly  won  the  field  by  hard  fighting.  Their 
ancient  valor  was  found  to  be  undiminished,  and  the  unmerited 
disrepute  into  which  they  had  fallen  since  the  surrender  at 
Sphacteria  was  at  once  forgotten.  In  the  fight  eleven  hundred 
hoplites  of  the  allied  army  had  fallen,  among  whom  were  numbered 
Laches  and  Nicostratus,  the  two  Athenian  generals.  Of  the  army 
of  Agis  three  hundred  had  been  slain,  all  of  them  Spartans  or 
Perioeci,  for  the  Tegeans  hardly  lost  a  man. 

The  defeat  of  Mantinea  drove  Argos  into  peace  with  Sparta ; 
soon  afterwards  the  democratic  government,  discredited  by  the 
disasters  it  had  brought  upon  the  city,  was  overthrown  by  a  sudden 
oligarchic  rising,  in  which  the  regiment  of  the  thousand,  which  had 
distinguished  itself  at  Mantinea,  took  the  chief  part.  But  the 
Argive  oligarchy  proved  unbearably  insolent  and  brutal ;  its  leaders 
perpetrated  murders  and  outrages  which  led  in  a  few  months  to 
counter-revolution.  The  victorious  democratic  party  soon  found 
itself  committed  to  a  renewed  war  with  Sparta,  and  was  compelled 
to  call  in  once  more  the  aid  of  Athens.  The  Athenians  and  iVrgives 
now  attempted  to  put  Argos  in  safety  by  constructing  long  walls 
from  the  city  to  the  sea.  But  soon  a  Spartan  army  appeared  in 
Argolis,  and  they  were  compelled  to  abandon  the  attempt,  which 
would  have  involved  the  building  of  a  double  wall  not  less  than 
five  miles  in  length. 

The  new  war  proved  as  indecisive  as  that  which  had  preceded 
it.  Argos  was  completely  overmatched,  but  the  Spartans  made  no 
adequate  use  of  their  superiority,  and  contented  themselves  witli 
supporting  their  allies  of  Phlius  and  Epidaurus,  and  keeping  the 
Argive  armies  at  home.     The  Athenians  dispatched  no  large  forces 


TRUCE    OF    NICIAS  327 

416  B.C. 

to  Peloponnesus,  and  still  avoided  direct  attacks  on  Laconia,  though 
the  exiled  Messenians,  whom  they  had  established  at  Pylos,  were 
not  so  forbearing. 

The  chief  event  of  416  B.C.  was  the  attack  which  the  Athenians 
made  on  Melos.  That  island,  though  its  name  is  found  in  the 
tribute-lists  of  the  Confederacy  of  Delos,  had  of  late  years  slipped 
out  of  control,  and  refused  to  aid  in  the  war,  because  it  was  a 
colony  of  Sparta.  With  no  other  justification  except  that  an 
autonomous  island  was  an  anomaly,  the  Athenians  threw  a  strong 
force  ashore  and  summoned  the  Melians  to  submission.  When  the 
islanders  refused  to  surrender  their  independence  their  city  was 
blockaded  by  sea  and  land.  After  a  vigorous  defense  the  place 
fell ;  in  brutal  assertion  of  the  right  of  the  stronger,  the  Athenians 
slew  off  the  whole  male  population,  and  sold  the  women  as  slaves. 
This  action  was  perhaps  the  most  atrocious  political  crime  com- 
mitted in  the  whole  war;  Melos  was  a  neutral  state,  had  given 
Athens  no  offense,  and  had  been  attacked  without  any  declaration 
of  hostilities.  Its  destruction  was  the  crowning  achievement  of 
Athenian  lust  for  empire,  and  every  right-minded  man  in  Greece 
saw  the  vengeance  of  Heaven  for  the  massacre  of  Melos  in  the 
unbroken  series  of  disasters  which  thenceforward  attended  the 
Athenian  arms. 


Chapter    XXXII 

EXPEDITION  TO  SICILY,  415-413  B.C. 

IT  might  have  been  expected  that  while  the  Chalcidian  cities 
were  still  unsubdued,  and  while  Sparta  was  gradually  freeing 
herself  from  her  home  troubles,  Athens  would  have  refrained 
from  any  further  indulgence  in  those  distant  and  hazardous  expedi- 
tions which  had  proved  so  profitless  hitherto.  But  this  was  not  to 
be;  inspired  by  its  accustomed  hopefulness,  and  led  on  by  the 
volatile  Alcibiades,  the  Ecclesia  now  proceeded  to  undertake  an 
adventure  which  far  surpassed  in  recklessness  anything  that  it  had 
previously  sanctioned.  Peace  at  home  was  precarious,  for  the 
Boeotians  might  at  ten  days'  notice  renew  hostilities,  and  Corinth 
and  Magara  were  also  free  from  any  permanent  engagement.  The 
Spartans  were  known  to  have  been  bitterly  provoked  by  the 
Athenian  alliance  with  Argos  and  by  the  appearance  of  Athenian 
troops  in  the  Peloponnese,  and  had  fair  grounds  for  repudiating 
at  any  moment  the  treaty  of  421  B.C.  The  fields  of  Attica  were 
only  just  resuming  their  ancient  aspect  of  cultivation.  The  de- 
pleted treasury  of  the  Delian  League  was  far  from  showing  the 
superabundant  masses  of  bullion  which  it  had  contained  before  the 
beginning  of  the  war.  Yet,  in  spite  of  these  obvious  facts,  Athens 
proceeded  to  stake  her  whole  empire  on  a  single  reckless  cast,  and 
to  imperil  the  reality  of  power  in  the  Aegean  while  grasping  at 
a  shadow  of  conquest  in  the  waters  of  the  West. 

It  was  now  eight  years  since  the  first  Athenian  expedition  to 
Sicily  had  been  brought  to  an  ignominious  end  by  the  conclusion 
of  peace  between  the  belligerent  states  in  the  island.  Since 
that  time  new  troubles  had  arisen.  In  Western  Sicily  a  war 
had  broken  out  between  the  Dorian  state  of  Selinus  and  the  bar- 
barian city  of  Segesta.  In  Eastern  Sicily  Syracuse  had  taken  ad- 
vantage of  civil  strife  among  her  Ionian  neighbors  of  Leontmi, 
and  destroyed  their  city;  but  the  exiled  Leontines  were  keeping  up 
a  desultory  warfare  against  their  oppressor  from  such  strongholds 
as  they  could  retain.  Both  the  Segestans  and  the  Leontines  had 
been  allies  of  Athens,  and  it  was  natural  that  in  their  hour  of 

3?8 


EXPEDITION    TO    SICILY  329 

416-415   B.C. 

distress  they  should  bethink  them  of  the  great  imperial  city,  who 
had  before  shown  that  her  arm  was  long  enough  to  reach  out  and 
deliver  blows  in  the  distant  West.  About  the  middle  of  the  year 
416  B.c.^  a  Segestan  embassy  appeared  at  Athens  to  ask  for  assist- 
ance, and  to  promise  lavish  supplies  of  money  and  vigorous  military 
aid  to  any  force  that  should  be  sent  to  help  them.  The  Ecclesia 
voted  that  envoys  should  be  sent  to  Sicily  to  investigate  the  state 
of  affairs;  this  was  done,  and  in  the  spring  of  415  B.C.  their  report 
was  laid  before  the  assembly.  They  brought  sixty  talents  of  silver, 
as  an  earnest  of  the  resources  which  Segesta  would  put  at  the  dis- 
posal of  Athens,  and  gave  a  glowing  account  of  the  wealth  and 
strength  of  the  city.  It  is  said  that  while  in  Sicily  they  had  been 
victimized  by  an  elaborate  scheme  of  deception  practiced  by  their 
hosts,  who  passed  off  on  them  all  the  silver-gilt  vessels  in  their 
temples  as  solid  gold,  and  made  a  sumptuous  display  of  private 
riches  by  sending  round  to  every  house  at  which  the  envoys  were 
entertained  all  the  plate  which  could  be  borrowed  in  the  city. 
Blinded  by  this  ostentatious  show  of  wealth,  the  ambassadors  held 
out  magnificent  prospects  to  the  Ecclesia;  the  Segestans  who  ac- 
companied them  renewed  their  appeal,  and  some  of  the  exiled 
Leontines  came  forward  to  back  their  petition. 

The  Conservative  party  at  Athens  put  forth  all  their  power  to 
oppose  the  grant  of  aid  to  the  Segestan  envoys.  Nicias,  now  as 
always  acting  as  their  spokesman,  denounced  the  idea  of  interfer- 
ing in  Sicilian  affairs  as  preposterous.  But,  led  on  by  Alcibiades, 
the  assembly  voted  that  sixty  ships  should  be  sent  to  Sicily,  in  order 
"  to  assist  the  Segestans,  to  join  in  re-establishing  Leontini,  and  to 
carry  out  such  other  measures  in  Sicily  as  should  be  best  for  the 
Athenians."  The  last  clause  of  the  decree  was  no  idle  piece  of 
verbiage,  but  covered  a  design — fully  worked  out  in  the  mind  of 
Alcibiades,  though  only  partially  apprehended  by  his  followers — 
of  reducing  the  whole  of  the  Sicilian  states  to  dependence  on 
Athens.  The  idea  had  entered  the  teeming  brain  of  Alcibiades 
that  Sicily  was  so  honeycombed  by  intestine  feuds  that  state  might 
be  systematically  turned  against  state  till  all  were  subdued.  He 
thought  that  the  expedition  of  427  B.C.  had  failed  merely  for  want 
of  strength  and  guidance,  and  that  a  large  armament,  used  with 
sufficient  unscrupulousness  and  decision,  would  easily  achieve  his 
end.  He  got  himself  nominated  as  one  of  the  three  commanders 
of  the  expedition ;  the  other  two  were  Lamachus,  a  skillful  but  poor 


330  GREECE 

415  B.C. 

and  uninfluential  soldier  of  fortune,  and  Nicias.  The  name  of  the 
latter  must  have  been  inserted  by  the  vote  of  the  opponents  of 
Alcibiades,  who  would  not  have  clogged  himself  with  such  an 
uncongenial  colleague. 

Appointed  against  his  will  to  conduct  a  war  which  he  had 
denounced,  Nicias  cast  about  for  means  to  prevent  the  expeditio:i 
from  setting  out.  The  bent  of  his  mind  inclined — as  his  conduct 
in  425  B.C.  with  reference  to  Cleon  and  Sphacteria  had  shown — 
towards  diplomacy  rather  than  straightforwardness.  Accordingly 
he  refrained  from  any  further  open  opposition  to  the  Sicilian 
scheme,  and  only  strove  to  disgust  the  people  with  it,  by  enlarging 
on  its  difficulties,  and  magnifying  the  land  and  sea  forces  w'hich 
would  be  necessary  to  carry  it  out.  But,  to  his  horror  and  disgust, 
the  Ecclesia,  now  as  in  425  B.C.,  took  him  at  his  word.  If  sixty 
galleys  seemed  too  small  a  squadron  to  him,  he  should  be  given  a 
hundred;  if  the  force  of  hoplites  voted  in  the  first  bill  was  in- 
sufficient, he  should  be  allowed  to  fix  the  number  for  himself.  Alci- 
biades completed  the  victory  of  his  side  by  a  fiery  speech,  in  which 
he  appealed  to  the  national  pride  in  the  prestige  of  Athens,  and 
promised  his  countrymen  an  easy  victory  over  the  mixed  multi- 
tudes of  the  faction-ridden  cities  of  Sicily.  Accordingly  the  decree 
was  passed  that  the  armament  should  be  prepared,  and  that  its  size 
and  scope  should  be  settled  by  the  three  generals  who  had  been 
elected  to  command  it. 

Alcibiades's  vanity  and  ambition  led  him  to  ask  for  control  over 
as  large  a  force  as  the  people  w'ould  grant  him,  while  Nicias — 
though  he  did  not  believe  in  the  possibility  of  success — had  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  a  powerful  armament  would  fail  less  disas- 
trously than  a  weak  one.  Accordingly  the  generals  agreed  in 
demanding  the  most  ample  resources.  Besides  the  hundred  Athe- 
nian vessels  voted  to  them,  they  raised  thirty-four  more  from  the 
subject  allies;  two  thousand  two  hundred  Athenian  hoplites  formed 
the  core  of  the  land  force ;  to  them  were  added  about  tw^o  thousand 
allies,  with  five  hundred  Argives  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  Man- 
tineans,  whom  Alcibiades  succeeded  in  enlisting  in  the  Peloponnese. 
Of  slingers  and  bowmen  from  Rhodes,  Crete,  and  elsewhere,  they 
hired  thirteen  hundred.  Athens  had  once  or  twice  sent  out  larger 
expeditions  for  some  short  campaign  near  home,  but  such  a  force 
had  never  been  dispatched  on  a  distant  adventure  fully  equipped  for 
many  months  of  service. 


EXPEDITION    TO    SICILY  331 

415   B.C. 

Public  opinion  in  the  city  was  so  thoroughly  convinced  of  the 
feasibility  of  the  conquest  of  Sicily  and  of  the  unlimited  possibili- 
ties of  private  money-getting  that  would  follow,  that  everyone 
was  eager  to  have  a  hand  in  the  business.  The  trierarchs  spared 
no  expense  in  the  fitting  out  of  their  vessels ;  the  hoplites  who  were 
drawn  for  the  expedition  considered  themselves  favored  by  fortune ; 
numerous  merchants  made  ready  to  accompany  the  fleet  in  their 
own  ships,  in  order  to  get  the  first  choice  of  the  new  lines  of  trade 
that  were  to  be  opened,  Alcibiades,  whose  windy  promises  buoyed 
everyone  up,  had  promised  that  the  fall  of  Selinus  and  Syracuse 
should  be  a  mere  prelude  to  the  subjection  of  all  Sicily,  the  con- 
quest of  Carthage,  and  the  absorption  of  the  whole  commerce  of 
the  Western  Mediterranean.  Most  men  were  ignorant  of  the  size 
and  power  of  the  Siceliot  cities,  and  even  those  who  knew  were 
carried  away  by  the  enthusiasm  of  the  hour.  In  pure  heedlessness 
and  lightness  of  heart  the  Athenians  committed  themselves  irre- 
vocably to  the  adventure  that  was  to  be  their  ruin. 

The  expedition  was  not,  however,  destined  to  set  forth  under 
favorable  auspices.  Just  as  the  dockyards  and  arsenals  of  Athens 
were  completing  the  last  equipments  of  the  fleet,  and  the  generals 
were  on  the  eve  of  putting  their  men  on  shipboard,  a  mysterious 
outrage  threw  all  Athens  into  perturbation.  There  were  scattered 
throughout  the  city,  before  the  doors  of  private  houses,  as  well  as 
at  every  street  corner  and  in  every  place  of  public  resort,  quantities 
of  Hermae,  or  busts  of  the  god  Hermes,  consisting  of  pillars  about 
five  or  six  feet  high,  with  their  upper  portions  hewn  into  the 
semblance  of  that  deity's  head  and  shoulders.  They  were  as 
common  and  as  faithfully  reverenced  as  the  shrines  of  the 
Madonna  at  the  street  corners  of  a  modern  continental  town.  In 
a  single  night  unknown  hands  played  havoc  with  all  these  images, 
cliipping  and  hacking  away  every  vestige  of  human  shape  from 
them.  It  is  said  that  only  one  bust  in  the  whole  city  escaped 
mutilation. 

Next  morning  there  was  a  universal  cry  of  wrath  at  the  sense- 
less and  profane  outrage.  It  was  not  merely  the  superstition  of 
the  Athenians  that  was  roused ;  the  vast  number  of  the  figures  that 
had  been  harmed  proved  that  scores  of  persons  must  have  been 
concerned  in  the  afi^air,  and  the  city  was  frightened  to  find  that  a 
large  band  of  secret  conspirators  was  lurking  in  its  midst.  The 
first  cry  of   the   public   voice   was   that  Alcibiades   was   the   only 


332  GREECE 

415    B.C. 

person  in  Athens  capable  of  such  a  wild  and  impious  freak.  But 
public  opinion  was  almost  certainly  wrong;  there  was  much  method 
in  the  madness  of  Alcibiades.  Reckless  as  he  was.  he  must  have 
been  most  desirous  at  this  moment  that  his  expedition  should 
start  with  every  favorable  omen.  It  is  far  more  likely  that  the 
enemies  of  Alcibiades  did  the  deed,  knowing  that  it  would  be  laid 
at  his  door,  and  perhaps  hoping  that  it  might  stop  the  expe- 
dition. 

Large  rewards  were  at  once  offered  for  information  as  to  the 
outrage,  and  a  special  commission  was  appointed  to  conduct  the 
inquiry;  but  the  secret  was  well  kept,  and  no  evidence  was  forth- 
coming. A  quantity  of  information,  however,  cropped  up  concern- 
ing other  recent  pieces  of  sacrilege,  the  most  prominent  of  which 
was  a  profane  parody  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  in  which  Alci- 
biades had  taken  the  leading  part.  At  the  next  meeting  of  the 
Ecclesia,  a  citizen  named  Pythonlcus  rose  to  charge  Alcibiades  with 
this  crime,  to  argue  that  he  must  also  have  mutilated  the  Hermae, 
and  to  demand  his  instant  prosecution.  The  young  general  denied 
the  accusation,  and  asked  for  a  prompt  trial ;  but  it  was  refused  him, 
for  his  own  side  thought  the  proposal  preposterous,  and  his  enemies 
preferred  to  bring  charges  against  him  in  his  absence,  when  he 
could  not  refute  them. 

Accordingly  Alcibiades  set  sail  with  the  other  generals,  at 
the  head  of  the  expedition.  Their  departure  was  a  magnificent 
and  impressive  scene,  for  the  whole  city  thronged  down  to  Peiraeus 
to  bid  God-speed  to  the  great  armament  which  was  to  win  Athens 
a  new  empire  in  the  West.  The  heralds  proclaimed  silence,  and 
public  prayer  was  made  for  the  success  of  the  expedition;  seamen 
and  officers  joined  in  pouring  libations  to  the  deities  of  the  sea,  and 
as  they  chanted  the  hymn  of  departure  the  great  multitude  on 
shore  joined  in.  Then  all  the  fleet  simultaneously  weighed  anchor, 
and  the  swifter  galleys  raced  with  each  other  as  far  as  Aegina 
before  falling  in  to  the  column  of  route.  The  scene  was  long 
remembered.  It  was  the  last  day  of  unalloyed  hope  and  exultation 
that  a  whole  generation  of  Athenians  was  to  know.  The  fleet 
rounded  ^lalea  and  steered  an  uneventful  course  as  far  as  Corcyra, 
where  it  picked  up  a  large  convoy  of  store  ships  and  merchantmen 
which  had  been  sent  on  before  to  that  place  of  rendezvous.  Then, 
after  dispatching  three  vessels  to  Sicily  to  warn  the  Segestans  and 
Leontlnes  of  their  approaching  arrival,   the  generals  crossed   the 


SUPPLIANT    PRAVIXC,    BEFORE    THE    STATTE    OF    ZEUS 
Painting  by   G.   Poillcux-Saint-Angc 


EXPEDITION    TO   SICILY  33S 

415  B.C. 

Ionian  Sea  at  its  narrowest,  and  pushed  along  the  Calabrian  coast 
toward  Tarentum. 

The  SiceHots  had  long  refused  to  credit  the  designs  which 
Athens  was  entertaining.  They  believed  that  at  the  most  a  small 
squadron,  like  those  which  Laches  and  Eurymedon  had  brought 
across  in  427  and  425  was  likely  to  visit  their  waters,  and  made 
little  or  no  preparations  to  resist  it.  Knowing  that  the  strong 
anti-Syracuse  alliance  which  had  existed  twelve  years  before  had 
now  ceased  to  be,  they  thought  that  an  Athenian  army  would  get 
no  foothold  in  the  island,  and  would  soon  be  constrained  to  return. 
It  was  not  till  the  fleet  of  invasion  reached  Corcyra  that  they 
recognized  that  a  real  danger  was  impending  over  them,  and 
learned  the  true  size  and  scope  of  the  expedition.  The  Syracusans, 
on  whom  the  brunt  of  the  attack  was  likely  to  fall,  then  at  last 
began  to  make  preparations  for  war,  sending  out  garrisons  to  the 
forts  which  kept  down  their  Sicel  subjects,  and  dispatching  envoys 
to  all  the  cities  in  the  island  for  the  purpose  of  forming  a  Pan- 
Siceliot  alliance  to  preserve  their  common  autonomy.  But  if  the 
Athenian  generals  had  acted  with  reasonable  promptitude,  they 
would  have  found  Syracuse  still  far  from  ready  for  an  immediate 
struggle. 

Nicias  and  his  colleagues  were  now  coasting  down  the  shores 
of  Italy;  they  found  the  Italiot  states  determined  to  preserve  a 
jealous  neutrality.  Towns  like  Thurii  and  Metapontum,  which 
were  bound  to  Athens  by  old  ties  of  alliance,  only  granted  the 
armament  water  and  an  anchorage;  Tarentum  and  Locri  denied 
them  even  those  small  boons.  It  was  not  till  they  reached  Rhegium 
that  they  could  find  a  state  which  would  allow  them  to  purchase 
provisions  in  a  market  outside  its  walls.  While  they  lay  in  the 
Rhegine  territory  they  received  a  discouraging  report  from  the 
vessels  which  had  been  sent  on  to  Segesta.  Instead  of  proving 
to  be  wealthy  and  powerful,  the  Segestans  were  found  to  be  unable 
to  contribute  more  than  thirty  talents  to  the  support  of  the  allies 
they  had  summoned. 

This  depressing  intelligence  affected  the  generals  in  different 
ways.  Nicias  held  that,  as  a  cold  welcome  awaited  them  in  Sicily, 
they  should  content  themselves  with  striking  a  blow  at  Selinus,  and 
then  return  home,  and  justify  themselves  to  the  Ecclesia  by  plead- 
ing the  mistaken  nature  of  their  instructions.  Lamachus  proposed 
to  sail  straight  to  Syracuse  before  the  enemy  had  realized  the  near- 


334  GREECE 

415  B.C. 

ness  of  their  approach,  and  to  endeavor  to  capture  or  cripple  the 
city  by  a  sudden  attack.  Alcibiades  held  the  first  scheme  pusillani- 
mous and  the  second  rash,  and  proposed  to  open  negotiations  with 
the  various  towns  which  had  a  grudge  against  Syracuse,  to  incite 
the  Sicels  to  rebel,  and  meanwhile  to  endeavor  to  get  possession  of 
some  city  in  the  western  part  of  the  island  as  a  place  of  arms  and 
a  base  of  operations  against  Syracuse.  This  fatal  "  middle  cour.^c  " 
was  adopted.  Nicias's  proposal  would  have  brought  the  armament 
safely,  if  ingloriously,  home;  that  of  Lamachus  would  have  offered 
some  chance  of  a  victory,  and  brought  matters  quickly  to  a  head. 
But  Alcibiades's  plan,  by  the  long  delays  which  it  necessitated, 
ruined  the  purpose  of  the  expedition. 

In  pursuance  of  the  plan  of  Alcibiades,  the  Athenians  spent 
the  remaining  months  of  the  summer  in  coasting  round  Sicily  in 
search  of  allies,  and  allowed  everyone  to  learn  their  numbers,  their 
objects,  and  their  plans.  They  were  unable  to  wnn  any  town  to 
themselves  except  Naxos  and  Catana ;  the  latter  was  compelled  per- 
force to  join  them,  for  while  negotiations  were  going  on  a  party 
of  Athenians  slipped  in  at  an  unguarded  postern  door  in  the  wall, 
and  left  the  Catanaeans  no  choice  but  alliance  or  destruction.  Cam- 
arina  and  Messene,  allies  of  Athens  in  427  B.C.,  would  have  nothing 
to  do  w'ith  their  old  friends.  Some  slight  forays  into  the  territories 
of  Syracuse  and  Gela  failed  completely.  The  only  military  achieve- 
ment of  the  Athenians  was  to  capture  the  small  Sician  town  of 
Hyccara,  whose  inhabitants  they  sold  as  slaves — a  proceeding  which 
brought  them  some  gain,  but  taught  every  state  in  the  island  w^hat 
it  had  to  expect  in  the  event  of  an  Athenian  success. 

While  this  dilatory  campaign  was  in  progress,  the  Salaminia, 
one  of  the  two  Athenian  state-galleys,  arrived  in  Sicily  with  orders 
for  Alcibiades  to  consider  himself  under  arrest,  and  to  return  at 
once  to  take  his  trial  for  the  matter  of  the  profanation  of  the  mys- 
teries. Since  the  departure  of  the  fleet,  the  Athenian  government 
had  been  making  desperate  efforts  to  unravel  that  mystery;  their 
offers  of  rewards  and  indemnity  to  any  informers  who  should  pre- 
sent themselves  produced  a  crop  of  venal  and  untrustworthy  wit- 
nesses. Scores  of  persons  were  thrown  into  prison  on  such  testi- 
mony, and  the  unending  series  of  arrests  led  to  something  like  a 
panic  in  the  city.  The  whole  business  has  been  not  inaptly  compared 
to  the  stir  in  England  which  followed  the  so-called  ''  Popish  Plot  " 
of  1679.     The  Titus  Oates  of  Athens  was  the  orator  Andocides, 


EXPEDITION    TO    SICILY  335 

415    B.C. 

Finding  himself  arrested  and  in  danger,  he  proceeded  to  make  a 
pretended  confession,  on  condition  that  his  own  life  should  be 
spared.  He  named  himself  and  many  other  persons  as  guilty  of 
the  sacrilege.  His  story  was  confused  and  improbable,  but  the 
authorities  were  ready  to  take  any  evidence  that  presented  itself. 
Hastily  accepting  the  whole  tale  as  true,  the  Athenians  brought  to 
trial  and  executed  everyone  within  their  reach  whom  Andocides 
denounced.  The  next  thing  was  to  investigate  the  profanation  of 
the  Eleusinian  mysteries  in  which  Alcibiades  had  been  declared  to 
be  implicated.  His  political  enemies,  the  demagogues  Peisander 
and  Charicles.  cried  loudly  for  his  punishment,  and  he  was  accord- 
ingly summoned  to  return  and  appear  for  trial.  He  started  home- 
ward from  Catana,  with  several  of  his  friends  who  were  also  ac- 
cused, but  on  arriving  at  Thurii  very  wisely  gave  his  conductors  the 
slip,  went  into  hiding,  and  is  next  heard  of  as  crossing  the  sea  and 
appearing  at  Sparta  to  do  what  harm  he  could  to  his  ungrateful 
country.  He  had,  of  course,  been  condemned  to  death  in  his  ab- 
sence, his  flight  being  taken  as  convincing  evidence  of  guilt. 

When  Alcibiades  was  removed,  we  might  have  expected  that 
one  of  the  schemes  which  Xicias  and  Lamachus  had  recommended 
would  have  been  put  into  action.  But  this  was  not  to  be;  all  that 
the  generals  did  was  to  land  near  Syracuse,  defeat  the  Syracusan 
army  in  the  plain  south  of  the  city,  and  then  to  sail  back  again  to 
Catana  and  go  into  winter  quarters.  The  descent  was  perfectly 
objectless,  unless  it  was  to  serve  as  the  immediate  prelude  to  the 
siege.  All  that  it  did  was  to  reveal  to  the  Syracusans  the  nearness 
of  the  danger,  and  to  induce  them  to  take  more  vigorous  measures 
for  defense  than  they  had  hitherto  thought  necessary. 

Syracuse,  as  it  then  stood,  consisted  of  two  portions.  The 
narrow-necked  peninsula  of  Ortygia,  the  oldest  part  of  the  place, 
projecting  into  the  sea  on  its  long  spit  of  land,  formed  the  inner 
and  lower  city.  The  larger  and  newer  quarter,  the  "  Outer  City," 
lay  around  the  heads  of  the  two  harbors.  The  two  quarters  seem 
each  to  have  had  its  separate  wall,  the  one  cutting  off  the  peninsula 
from  the  mainland,  and  forming  an  inner  line  of  defense  (b  on  the 
map)  ;  the  other,  whose  exact  line  is  uncertain,  forming  an  outer 
circle  (perhaps  as  a  a  in  map).  To  the  north  lay  the  bare  limestone 
plateau  of  Epipolae,  a  long  spur  of  upland  which  runs  down  from 
the  mountains  of  the  interior,  and  overlooks  the  two  harbors  and 
the  city  around  them.   During  the  winter  of  415-414  B.C.  it  occurred 


336 


GREECE 


414  B.C. 

to  the  Syracusans  that,  if  once  the  enemy  seized  Epipolae,  they 
would  be  able  to  blockade  the  city  with  little  difficulty,  owing  to  the 
narrowness  of  the  front  of  the  defenses.  Accordingly,  during  the 
four  months'  respite  which  the  inaction  of  the  Athenians  gave  them, 
the  Syracusans  worked  hard  to  construct  a  new  wall.     Starting 


from  the  sea  on  the  north,  they  built  a  line  of  fortifications  right 
across  Epipolae  from  north  to  south,  including  all  the  eastern  part 
of  the  plateau,  and  forming  a  strong  line  of  defense,  with  a  much 
longer  front  than  that  of  the  previous  city-wall  (c  c  in  map). 

Nor  did  the  Syracusans  neglect  other  precautions.  They  placed 
in  chief  command  Hermocrates,   their  best  general,   renewed   old 


EXPEDITION    TO    SICILY  337 

414   B.C. 

alliances  with  their  neighbors,  and  sent  for  aid  to  Sparta  and  Cor- 
inth. At  Corinth,  their  mother-city,  they  met  with  a  favorable 
reception,  and  were  at  once  promised  assistance.  At  Sparta  the 
ephors  hesitated  for  some  time,  but  were  at  length  convinced  by  the 
arguments  of  Alcibiades,  who  had  joined  the  Syracusan  embassy, 
and  did  all  in  his  power  to  further  its  objects.  He  explained  to  the 
ephors  the  full  scope  of  the  Athenian  designs  on  Sicily,  and  pointed 
out  how  they  could  be  most  easily  frustrated.  He  recommended 
that  a  Spartan  ofificer  should  be  sent  to  Syracuse  with  some  troops 
at  his  back  to  encourage  the  Siceliots.  ^Moreover,  he  advised  the 
open  renewal  of  war  with  Athens,  now  that  so  large  a  part  of  her 
resources  was  diverted  to  the  West.  But  above  all  he  laid  stress 
on  the  advantage  of  seizing  and  fortifying  the  commanding  posi- 
tion of  Decelea  on  the  brow  of  Mount  Parnes,  and  of  retaining  it 
as  a  permanent  post  for  the  molestation  of  Athens,  to  play  in  Attica 
the  part  that  Pylos  had  played  in  Laconia.  ]\Iuch  of  this  advice  the 
ephors  were  ready  to  take.  They  did  not  declare  immediate  war  on 
Athens,  but  they  resolved  to  send  a  force  under  Gylippus.  an  officer 
of  distinction,  to  assist  the  Syracusans;  Athenian  auxiliaries  had 
been  found  in  the  Argive  line  of  battle  at  Mantinea,  and  Athens 
could  not  complain  if  Laconians  and  Corinthians  were  seen  fighting 
in  the  Syracusan  ranks.  Four  ships  were  ordered  to  be  prepared  for 
Gyllippus  at  once,  to  sail  from  Corinth ;    others  were  to  follow. 

When  spring  come  round,  Nicias  and  Lamachus  received  from 
Athens  a  reinforcement  of  cavalry,  in  which  arm  they  had  hitherto 
been  deficient.  They  also  raised  some  horse  from  the  Segestans, 
Catanaeans,  and  Sicels  till  they  had  altogether  six  hundred  and  fifty. 
Thus  strengthened,  they  landed  at  Leon,  a  village  a  few  miles  north 
of  Syracuse,  and  advanced  towards  the  town.  Before  them  lay  a 
line  of  heights,  the  northern  slope  of  the  plateau  of  Epipolae.  The 
cliff  could  only  be  ascended  at  certain  points,  and  the  Syracusans 
had  placed  there  a  guard  of  six  hundred  men.  But  this  force  was 
caught  unprepared,  for  everyone  had  been  expecting  the  Athenians 
to  disembark  south,  not  north,  of  the  city.  Accordingly,  the  in- 
vading army  had  reached  the  brow  of  Epipolae  before  they  were 
attacked,  and  succeeded  in  driving  off  the  defenders  and  establish- 
ing themselves  on  the  plateau,  facing  the  new  Syracusan  wall.  The 
fleet  came  to  anchor  at  Thapsus,  a  little  to  the  north  of  Leon. 

Nicias  and  Lamachus  had  resolved  to  wall  in  Syracuse  with 
lines  of  circumvallation,  in  the  orthodox  fashion  of  Greek  siege- 


338  GREECE 

414   B.C. 

craft.  The  ground  over  which  their  lines  would  have  to  run  was 
settled  by  the  contour  of  the  new  wall  which  the  Syracusans  had 
built  in  the  winter;  opposite  it,  at  a  distance  just  beyond  bowshot, 
the  Athenian  lines  were  to  be  constructed.  The  northern  half  of 
their  extent  would  cut  across  the  high  plateau  of  Epipolae;  the 
southern  half  would  lie  on  the  slope  where  Epipolae  sank  down 
towards  the  Great  Harbor,  and  on  the  marshy  plain  by  the  seashore. 
Nicias  began  by  constructing  a  fort  called  Labdalum  at  the  highest 
point  on  Epipolae,  and  then  a  large  circular  entrenchment  (e  in 
map)  somewhat  further  south.  The  latter  was  to  be  the  central 
point  of  the  line  of  circumvallation,  lying  at  an  equal  distance  from 
the  open  sea  on  the  north  and  the  Great  Harbor  on  the  south. 
Instead  of  coming  out  and  offering  battle,  the  Syracusan  generals 
had  determined  to  endeavor  to  frustrate  the  attempt  to  build  them 
in,  by  throwing  out  counter-walls  from  the  city,  across  the  ground 
where  the  Athenian  lines  were  to  be  drawn.  They  accordingly  built, 
towards  the  southern  brow  of  the  plateau  of  Epipolae,  a  stockade 
running  east  and  west  (h  on  the  map),  south  of  the  central  fort 
which  Nicias  had  erected.  The  Athenian  works  could  not  be  con- 
tinued unless  this  entrenchment  was  captured  and  destroyed ;  ac- 
cordingly a  vigorous  and  successful  attempt  was  made  to  storm  it, 
when  the  Syracusans  at  midday  were  intent  on  their  rest  or  their 
meal.  The  counter-wall  was  destroyed,  and  the  Athenian  line  of 
circumvallation  completed  southward  from  the  circular  fort  as  far 
as  the  foot  of  Epipolae. 

The  Syracusans,  still  persevering  with  the  same  plan  of  resist- 
ance, now  built  a  second  counter-wall  on  the  low  marshy  ground 
near  the  Great  Harbor  (j  on  the  plan).  This  also  the  Athenians 
assaulted,  but  they  did  not  on  that  occasion  surprise  the  enemy, 
who  came  out  in  full  force  into  the  open,  and  fought  a  general 
action  in  defense  of  the  counter-wall.  Again,  however,  the  Athe- 
nians were  victorious;  the  Syracusans  were  scattered  and  routed, 
and  their  entrenchment  carried  by  storm.  But  in  the  midst  of  the 
battle  Lamachus  was  slain,  so  that  the  sole  command  of  the  Athe- 
nian army  now  devolved  upon  Nicias.  This  was  an  immense  mis- 
fortune for  Athens;  the  fallen  general  was  a  man  of  energy  and 
decision  and  a  practiced  soldier,  while  the  survivor  was  more  of  a 
politician  than  a  military  man,  and  though  fit  enough  for  fair- 
weather  campaigning,  was  prone  to  doubt  and  irresolution  at  criti- 
cal moments.    Moreover,  he  hated  the  task  which  had  been  put  upon 


EXPEDITION   TO   SICILY  339 

414   B.C. 

him  and  believed  in  his  own  heart  that  it  was  impossible.  To  add 
to  his  troubles,  he  was  suffering  from  a  painful  internal  disease, 
which  frequently  confined  him  to  his  tent. 

Having  driven  the  Syracusans  within  their  walls,  the  Athenian 
army  was  now  in  a  position  to  complete  the  lines  of  circumvallation. 
Nicias  had  brought  round  the  fleet  from  Thapsus  to  the  Great 
Harbor,  had  landed  all  his  stores,  and  drawn  his  ships  ashore  on  its 
beach.  He  therefore  thought  it  most  important  to  complete  the 
southern  portion  of  the  lines,  so  as  to  cover  the  fleet;  the  northern 
section,  towards  the  open  sea,  he  left  unfinished  till  he  should  have 
fully  built  the  rest.  Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  while  the  circumval- 
lation from  the  brow  of  Epipolae  to  the  Great  Harbor  was  elabo- 
rately  complete,  with  a  double  line  of  wall,  that  which  ran  from  the 
central  circular  fort  to  the  northern  sea  was  full  of  gaps,  and  in 
places  hardly  even  commenced.  This  was  to  prove  of  fatal  impor- 
tance during  the  next  few  weeks. 

The  Athenians  had  now  reached  the  height  of  their  good  for- 
tune, though  this  only  amounted  to  having  shut  up  the  Syracusans 
in  their  city;  the  real  siege  had  yet  to  begin.  Nevertheless  the 
moral  effect  of  their  success  was  considerable;  a  faction  in  Syra- 
cuse had  already  commenced  to  talk  of  asking  terms  of  peace, 
and  reinforcements  were  beginning  to  join  the  invaders  from  sev- 
eral states  hitherto  neutral,  even  from  distant  Etruria. 

Just  at  this  moment  a  new  factor  intervened  in  the  struggle. 
Gylippus  had  started  from  Corinth  with  his  four  ships  when  the 
spring  came  round,  and  had  now  arrived  in  Sicily.  He  landed  at 
Himera,  hardly  hoping  to  save  Syracuse,  for  rumor  had  reported 
that  the  city  was  now  entirely  circumvallated.  Finding  that  this 
was  not  yet  the  case,  he  resolved  to  throw  himself  into  it.  He 
added  to  the  seven  hundred  men  whom  he  had  brought  with  him 
several  thousand  more  from  Himera,  Selinus,  and  Gela,  and 
marched  rapidly  towards  Syracuse.  Coming  upon  the  unfinished 
portion  of  the  Athenian  lines,  on  the  northern  side  of  Epipolae,  he 
passed  through  one  of  the  gaps  and  threw  himself  into  the  town. 
The  whole  Syracusan  army  came  out  to  join  him,  and  then  offered 
the  Athenians  battle.  Nicias  would  not  accept  the  challenge,  find- 
ing himself  outnumbered  now  that  Gylippus's  army  had  arrived. 
He  lay  with  his  troops  under  arms  near  the  circular  fort  on  the 
south  side  of  Epipolae,  and  made  no  movement  when  Gylippus  laid 
hands  on  the  unfinished  wall  to  the  north,  pulled  it  down,  and  began 


34-0  GREECE 

414  B.C. 

to  build  with  its  materials  a  counter-wall  running  out  from  the 
Syracusan  lines  of  defense  towards  the  highest  ground  on  Epipolae. 
He  allowed  his  fort  at  Labdalum  to  be  surprised  and  captured, 
and  thus  entirely  lost  command  of  the  northern  slope  of  the  plateau. 
Presently  the  Syracusan  counter-wall  reached  the  level  of  the 
Athenian  lines,  just  north  of  the  circular  fort ;  if  it  could  be  con- 
tinued any  further,  Nicias  could  not  hope  to  recover  his  lost  ascend- 
ency, and  would  himself  be  besieged  rather  than  besieging.  It 
required  two  sharp  engagements  to  settle  the  question,  but  in  the 
second  Gylippus  was  wholly  victorious,  and  the  counter-wall  was 
carried  past  the  critical  point.  During  the  succeeding  month  the 
Syracusans  prolonged  it  more  and  more  to  the  west,  till  it  finally 
reached  Euryelus,  the  narrow  and  lofty  western  summit  of  Epip- 
olae; at  the  more  exposed  points  on  its  front  it  was  strengthened 
with  four  forts  (k  k  in  map). 

The  misfortunes  of  Nicias  w^ere  only  just  beginning.  A  few 
days  later  twelve  Peloponnesian  triremes  ran  the  blockade,  and 
entered  the  small  harbor  in  safety.  They  announced  that  more 
ships  were  to  follow,  a  promise  which  encouraged  the  Syracusans 
to  think  of  launching  their  own  fleet;  they  possessed  some  forty 
or  fifty  vessels,  which  had  not  yet  ventured  out  of  port,  for  fear 
of  the  overwhelming  forces  of  the  Athenians.  The  stir  which 
was  soon  visible  in  the  Syracusan  arsenal  disturbed  Nicias,  for  his 
own  squadron  was  now  in  very  bad  condition.  The  galleys  had 
been  lying  on  the  beach  for  some  months  far  from  any  dock,  and 
were  growing  leaky.  The  crews  were  out  of  condition,  and  many 
of  the  slaves  and  mercenaries  who  filled  the  lower  benches  had 
begun  to  desert  since  the  fortune  of  the  armament  seemed  at  an  end. 

Nicias  now  began  to  take  defensive  measures,  in  case  Gylippus 
should  be  emboldened  to  take  the  offensive.  He  occupied  the  penin- 
sula of  Plemmyrium,  which  runs  out  into  the  sea  opposite  Ortygia, 
and  removed  to  it  the  greater  part  of  his  stores  and  a  considerable 
portion  of  the  fleet.  Three  forts  were  erected  in  commanding  posi- 
tions to  ])rotect  the  new  depot.  If  the  unfortunate  general  had 
possessed  sufticient  moral  strength  to  carry  out  his  own  plans,  he 
would  now  have  put  his  troops  on  shipboard  and  sailed  home,  aban- 
doning the  whole  enterprise.  But  Nicias  was  a  man  of  irresolute 
nature,  and  terribly  afraid  of  responsibility.  He  dreaded  the  recep- 
tion which  would  have  awaited  him  at  Athens,  and  instead  of  de- 
parting, as  his  own  impulse  urged,  contented  himself  with  sending 


EXPEDITION    TO    SICILY  341 

414   B.C. 

dispatches  home  to  describe  his  evil  pHght,  and  to  ask  for  further 
orders.  "  Unless  Athens,"  he  wrote,  "  was  ready  to  send  to  his 
assistance  a  very  large  expedition  in  the  shortest  possible  time,  or 
to  allow  him  to  return,  he  foresaw  a  disaster."  Autumn  was  now 
at  hand,  and  the  time  required  for  sending  to  Athens  and  receiving 
an  answer  was  so  great  that  it  was  obvious  that  the  spring  would 
have  arrived  before  any  orders  sent  from  home  could  be  carried  out. 

The  dispatches  of  Nicias  reached  Athens  at  a  most  unfavorable 
moment,  for  it  had  just  become  evident  that  the  renewal  of  the  war 
with  Sparta  was  at  hand.  Exasperated  by  the  sending  of  Pelopon- 
nesian  troops  to  Syracuse,  the  Athenians  had,  in  the  summer  of 
414  B.c.^  openly  broken  the  truce  with  Sparta  by  sending  a  fleet  of 
forty  ships  to  harry  the  coast  of  Laconia.  Prasiae,  Epidaurus,  Li- 
mera,  and  other  places  had  been  sacked  and  burned ;  the  ephors  had 
sworn  vengeance,  and  it  was  known  that  the  great  inroads  into 
Attica,  which  had  ceased  since  421  B.C.,  were  to  recommence  next 
spring.  It  might  have  been  expected  that  when  the  old  strife  with 
Sparta  was  about  to  be  renewed,  the  Ecclesia  would  have  com- 
manded the  instant  return  of  the  army  in  Sicily  for  service  nearer 
home.  But,  blinded  by  their  usual  overconfidence  and  hopefulness, 
the  Athenians  resolved  to  persevere  in  the  attack  on  Syracuse.  They 
refused  to  recall  Nicias  or  to  bring  home  the  army,  and  sent  out 
word  that  he  should  have  reinforcements  sufficient  to  bring  the  siege 
to  a  successful  end.  Demosthenes,  the  most  distinguished  general 
that  Athens  possessed,  was  to  head  the  new  expedition,  which  was 
almost  to  rival  the  first  in  its  strength  and  resources.  Eurymedon 
was  sent  forward  at  midwinter  with  ten  ships  to  inform  Nicias  of 
the  approaching  aid. 

Meanwhile  at  Syracuse  the  winter  of  414-413  b.c.  was  passing 
by.  No  decisive  event  had  happened,  but  the  Athenian  army  was 
visibly  growing  weaker,  while  Gylippus  had  raised  several  thousand 
men,  from  the  Siceliot  cities  allied  with  Syracuse,  to  strengthen 
his  already  superior  force.  He  had  also  persuaded  the  Syracusans 
to  launch  every  war-vessel  that  could  possibly  be  made  seaworthy, 
and  not  less  than  eighty  galleys  were  now  lying  ready  for  service 
in  the  two  harbors.  When  the  spring  arrived,  he  assumed  the 
offensive;  marching  inland,  he  worked  right  round  to  the  rear  of 
the  Athenian  camp,  and  established  himself,  under  cover  of  the 
night,  close  to  their  depot  at  Plemmyrium.  \A'hen  the  dawn  came, 
his  ships  left  the  harbor  and  offered  the  Athenians  battle ;  a  violent 


S42  GREECE 

413   B.C. 

conflict  took  place  at  the  mouth  of  the  Great  Harbor,  which  ended 
in  the  defeat  of  the  Syracusans.  But  while  Nicias  was  intent  on 
the  sea-fight.  Gylippus  had  fallen  upon  the  forts  at  Plemmyrium, 
stormed  all  three,  and  got  possession  of  the  vast  stores  which  had 
been  heaped  together  on  that  peninsula.  So  far,  too,  were  the  Syra- 
cusans from  feeling  discouraged  by  the  result  of  the  naval  engage- 
ment, that  a  few  days  later  they  sent  out  a  squadron  of  twelve  ships 
to  cruise  in  the  open  sea.  These  vessels  fell  in  with  some  Athenian 
ships,  which  were  conveying  treasure  to  Nicias,  and  destroyed  sev- 
eral of  them. 

Meanwhile  King  Agis,  with  a  large  Peloponnesian  army,  had 
invaded  Attica  in  April,  and  ravaged  the  whole  country.  He  had 
taken  the  advice  of  i\lcibiades,  and  established  a  permanent  Spartan 
garrison  at  Decelea.  Nevertheless  the  Athenians  had  not  slackened 
in  their  determination  to  send  help  to  Nicias,  and  while  the  Spartan 
army  was  still  in  the  land,  had  sent  forth  Demosthenes  and  his  ex- 
pedition. He  had  seventy-five  triremes,  five  thousand  hoplites,  of 
whom  twelve  hundred  were  Athenians,  and  a  large  force  of  liglit- 
troops.  On  his  way  he  obtained  considerable  reinforcements  from 
Acarnania  and  also  from  Italy;  for,  owing  to  domestic  revolutions, 
the  states  of  Metapontum  and  Thurii  had  just  changed  their  policy 
and  concluded  an  alliance  with  Athens.  About  the  same  time  that 
Demosthenes  sailed  forth  the  Spartans  dispatched  several  small 
squadrons,  with  about  two  thousand  troops  on  board,  under  orders 
to  cross  the  open  sea  to  Sicily  and  run  the  Athenian  blockade. 

When  the  news  of  the  approach  of  Demosthenes  reached  Syra- 
cuse, Gylippus  and  his  Syracusan  colleagues  resolved  to  make  a 
determined  attempt  to  crush  Nicias  before  he  could  receive  his  re- 
inforcements. The  Syracusan  army,  divided  into  two  bodies,  at- 
tacked the  Athenian  camp  both  from  the  city  and  from  the  inland ; 
at  the  same  time  their  fleet  offered  battle  with  eighty  ships  in  the 
Great  Harbor.  The  forces  of  Nicias  were  now  so  weakened  that 
he  could  man  only  seventy-five  ships,  though  forty  or  fifty  more  lay 
empty  on  the  beach.  The  attempt  on  the  Athenian  camp  failed, 
but  by  sea,  after  two  days'  hard  fighting,  the  Syracusans  had  the 
mastery,  and  compelled  the  enemy  to  seek  refuge  on  shore  under 
the  protection  of  his  land  army,  leaving  seven  or  eight  galleys  be- 
hind him.  The  victory  of  the  Siceliots  was  ascribed  to  tl)e  manner 
in  which  they  had  equipped  their  fleet;  they  had  cut  down  and 
strengthened  the  bows  of  each  ship,  and  made  their  beaks  short  and 


EXPEDITION    TO    SICILY  343 

413    B.C. 

Strong  instead  of  long  and  sharp.  When  a  Syracusan  and  an 
Athenian  vessel  came  into  direct  collision,  stem  to  stem,  it  resulted 
that  the  weaker  beak  of  the  latter  made  little  impression  on  the  solid 
bows  of  the  other,  while  the  shorter  but  stronger  beak  usually  broke 
through  the  slighter  frame  of  the  Athenian  ship.  These  direct  col- 
lisions were  bound  to  occur  very  frequently  in  the  confined  space  of 
the  Great  Harbor,  which  gave  the  Athenians  little  room  for  the 
skirmishing  tactics  in  which  they  excelled. 

Within  a  few  days  of  the  sea-fight  Demosthenes  arrived  with 
his  great  armament,  and  once  more  threw  the  balance  of  power 
on  to  the  side  of  the  Athenians.  Being  a  man  of  vigor  and  decision, 
he  overruled  the  dilatory  Nicias,  and  commenced  offensive  opera- 
tions the  moment  that  his  men  were  on  shore.  He  first  brought 
military  engines  to  bear  on  the  Syracusan  counter-wall,  which  shut 
the  Athenians  off  from  the  plateau  of  Epipolae,  and  then  tried  to 
storm  the  works.  His  attack  was  repulsed,  but  his  resources  were  not 
at  an  end.  Marching  inland  under  cover  of  the  night,  he  ascended 
the  hillside  beyond  Euryelus,  the  westernmost  point  of  Epipolae, 
where  the  Syracusan  counter-wall  ended.  This  circuitous  route 
brought  him  to  the  rear  of  the  enemy's  position,  where  his  attack 
was  wholly  unexpected.  He  captured  a  fort,  drove  back  the  forces 
left  to  guard  the  wall,  and  pushed  on  for  some  time,  carrying  all 
before  him.  But  presently  his  troops  fell  into  disorder,  the  enemy 
rallied,  and  a  desperate  and  confused  conflict  was  carried  on  in 
the  darkness.  It  terminated  in  the  rout  of  the  Athenians,  who 
suffered  terribly  as  they  fled  along  the  steep  cliffs,  and  lost  as  many 
men  by  the  precipices  as  by  the  sword  of  the  enemy.  The  defeat 
cost  so  many  lives,  and  demoralized  the  army  to  such  an  extent, 
that  Demosthenes  at  once  decided  that  nothing  remained  possible 
but  instant  retreat.  Nicias,  however,  withstood  him,  and  insisted 
that  the  position  was  not  yet  hopeless,  and  that  Syracuse  would  ere 
long  ask  for  terms  from  sheer  inability  to  bear  any  longer  the  in- 
tolerable pressure  of  the  war.  But  soon  the  reinforcements  from 
Peloponnesus  joined  Gylippus,  and  at  the  same  time  a  fever,  bred 
in  the  marsh  beside  the  Athenian  camp,  began  to  thin  the  invader's 
ranks.  Even  Nicias  now  consented  to  abandon  the  siege,  and  gave 
orders  for  embarkation.  But,  on  the  night  before  the  day  of 
departure,  a  total  eclipse  of  the  moon  occurred.  The  soothsayers, 
who  were  called  in  to  interpret  the  omen,  proclaimed  that  the 
army  must  remain  quiet  for  thrice  nine  days.    Nicias.  who  was  in- 


344  GREECE 

413  B.C. 

tensely  superstitious,  nisisted  on  following  their  advice,  and  the  em- 
barkation was  postponed  for  the  period  named. 

This  was  the  last  stroke  needed  to  complete  the  ruin  of  the 
Athenians.  The  obvious  preparations  for  departure  in  the  invader's 
camp  had  raised  the  spirits  of  the  Syracusans  to  the  highest  pitch 
of  exultation,  and  they  commenced  a  series  of  attacks  which  made 
the  position  of  Nicias  and  Demosthenes  more  and  more  difficult. 
Their  fleet,  though  little  more  than  half  as  strong  in  mere  numbers 
as  that  of  the  Athenians,  was  incessantly  active.  Its  vigor  and  daring 
grew  so  great  that  at  last  seventy-six  Syracusan  vessels  routed  a 
squadron  of  eighty-six  which  Eurymedon  led  out  against  them,  slew 
that  officer,  and  took  eighteen  of  his  shij^s.  The  next  action  of 
Gylij^pus  showed  that  he  had  got  beyond  the  idea  of  merely  driving 
the  Athenians  away,  and  had  begun  to  think  of  annihilating  them. 
He  rapidly  threw  across  the  narrow  mouth  of  the  Great  Harbor, 
between  Ortygia  and  the  northernmost  point  of  Plemmyrium,  a 
barrier  composed  of  merchantmen  moored  stem  to  stern,  so  as  to 
completely  shut  in  the  Athenian  fleet. 

This  drove  even  Nicias  to  desperate  and  immediate  action. 
Every  seaworthy  ship  that  the  invaders  could  muster  was  drawn 
down  to  the  sea ;  large  drafts  both  of  hoplites  and  of  light-armed 
troops  were  sent  on  board,  and  a  supreme  effort  w^as  made  to  crush 
the  Syracusans  by  gross  force  of  numbers.  A  hundred  and  ten 
galleys,  with  Demosthenes  at  their  head,  sailed  forth  to  burst  the 
barrier  at  the  mouth  of  the  harbor,  while  Nicias  kept  guard  in  the 
camp  on  shore.  The  Syracusans,  though  they  could  only  send  out 
eighty  vessels,  did  not  decline  the  combat.  The  two  fleets  grappled 
together  in  the  confined  space  of  the  harbor,  and  lay  locked  in  close 
conflict  for  hours.  The  whole  of  Syracuse  crowded  to  the  walls  of 
Ortygia  to  view  the  fight,  while  the  Athenian  land  army  mounted 
the  ramparts  of  their  camp  to  watch  the  decision  of  their  fate.  The 
stake  at  issue  was  so  heavy  that  the  victory  was  disputed  with  far 
greater  obstinacy  than  had  been  seen  in  any  previous  engagement. 
The  Athenians  had  ruin  staring  them  in  the  face,  if  they  could  not 
burst  the  barrier  and  force  their  way  to  sea;  the  Syracusans  were 
borne  up  by  the  self-confidence  which  their  previous  successes  had 
generated,  and  determined  not  to  lose  the  fruits  of  their  long  strug- 
gle. There  was  little  maneuvering  possible,  and  the  fight  resembled 
a  land  battle  on  the  sea,  for  the  vessels  drifted  into  knots,  and  lay 
wedged  together,  while  the  hoplites  fought  hand  to  hand  in  their 


EXPEDITION   TO   SICILY  845 

413   B.C. 

attempts  to  board.  At  last  the  resolution  of  the  Athenians  began  to 
fail  them ;  in  spite  of  their  superior  numbers  they  had  made  no  head- 
way, and  had  not  even  approached  the  boom.  With  a  simultaneous 
impulse  every  vessel  that  could  get  loose  backed  v^ater,  turned,  and 
made  for  the  shore.  The  land  army,  with  one  loud  groan  of  de- 
spair, ran  down  from  the  camp  to  the  beach,  to  aid  in  dragging  the 
ships  into  safety.  Sixty  came  safely  to  land,  fifty  were  left  in  the 
power  of  the  enemy,  or  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  harbor.  The  Syra- 
cusans  had  suffered  almost  as  severely  in  proportion  to  their  num- 
bers, for  nearly  thirty  of  their  vessels  were  sunk  or  utterly  dis- 
abled. 

Demosthenes  made  one  final  appeal  to  the  defeated  armament. 
He  pointed  out  that  the  Athenian  vessels  which  survived  still  out- 
numbered the  enemy,  that  the  victors  were  completely  exhausted, 
and  that  the  only  real  chance  for  escape  lay  in  bursting  the  barrier. 
But  when  he  ordered  the  seamen  once  more  to  embark,  they  sullenly 
refused  to  return  to  the  battle ;  nothing  more  could  be  done  at  sea. 

The  only  remaining  course  for  the  Athenians  was  to  burn  their 
fleet,  evacuate  their  camp,  start  inland,  and  attempt  to  reach  Catana 
by  a  march  of  forty  miles  through  the  hills  and  defiles  of  the  Syra- 
cusan  territory.  Clear-headed  men  foresaw  that  the  attempt  must 
end  in  ruin,  for  the  army  was  demoralized,  the  roads  were  bad,  and 
a  victorious  enemy  in  overwhelming  numbers  was  ready  to  start  in 
pursuit.  But  to  give  the  retreat  any  chance  of  success  it  must  be 
commenced  at  once,  before  the  Syracusans  had  time  to  beset  the 
passes  through  which  the  army  must  thread  its  way.  Misled,  how- 
ever, by  false  reports  of  the  intentions  of  the  enemy,  Nicias  refused 
to  start  the  night  after  the  battle,  and  even  the  next  day  was  occu- 
pied in  sorting  over  the  stores,  packing  up  treasure  and  provisions, 
and  settling  the  details  of  the  march.  On  the  third  morning  the 
whole  army  started  forth  in  a  great  hollow  square,  with  the  baggage 
in  the  center.  Nicias  led  the  van,  Demosthenes  the  rear.  Vast 
quantities  of  stores  were  abandoned,  and  the  apathy  and  careless- 
ness displayed  was  so  great  that  the  larger  part  of  the  fleet  was 
left  unburned  for  the  enemy  to  tow  away  at  leisure.  Not  only  were 
the  corpses  of  those  who  had  fallen  still  lying  unburied  on  the  shore, 
but  several  thousand  wounded  were  left  behind,  in  spite  of  the 
pitiful  appeals  for  aid  which  they  addressed  to  their  departing  coun- 
trymen. The  whole  mass  of  combatants  and  non-combatants 
hurried  away  without  any  thought  than  that  of  saving  their  own 


346  GREECE 

413   B.C. 

persons.  "  They  were  quite  disheartened  and  demoralized,"  writes 
Thucydides,  "  and  resembled  nothing  but  a  whole  city  starved  out 
and  endeavoring  to  escape ;  and  no  small  city,  too,  for,  counting  the 
whole  multitude,  there  were  not  less  than  forty  thousand  on  the 
march." 

Meanwhile  the  two  days  of  delay  had  permitted  the  Syracusans 
to  seize  all  the  difficult  passes,  throw  up  works  against  the  fords, 
and  break  down  the  bridges  on  every  road  which  the  Athenians 
could  take.  Moreover,  they  had  planted  parties  of  cavalry  where- 
ever  the  ground  was  open  and  level,  so  that  no  one  could  straggle 
from  the  ranks  of  the  retreating  force.  On  the  first  day  the  army 
forced  the  passage  of  the  river  Anapus  and  advanced  five  miles, 
not  without  suffering  severe  losses.  On  the  second  day  they 
reached  the  foot  of  a  pass  called  the  Acraean  Cliff,  and  found  it 
strongly  held  by  the  enemy.  The  third  and  fourth  days  were  spent 
in  attempts  to  force  this  defile,  which  proved  entirely  unavailing; 
W'hile  the  head  of  the  army  was  fighting  in  the  pass,  the  rear  was 
being  galled  by  unceasing  cavalry  charges,  and  shot  down  from  a 
distance  by  the  light-armed  troops  of  the  Syracusans.  Finding  the 
Acraean  Cliff  impregnable,  the  Athenians  now  fronted  to  the  rear, 
and  started  off  in  a  new  direction ;  as  they  could  not  reach  Catana, 
they  would  endeavor  to  make  their  way  to  the  friendly  Sicels  of  the 
interior.  The  march  now  lay  southward ;  before  it  could  begin 
Nicias  had  to  cut  his  way  through  the  Syracusan  corps  which  had 
been  hanging  on  his  rear,  a  feat  which  he  accomplished  only  with 
heavy  loss.  The  food  of  the  retreating  army  was  now  well-nigh 
exhausted,  and  there  was  no  spirit  for  fighting  left  in  them ;  the 
whole  force  was  ready  to  disband,  and  many  thousands  had  already 
deserted  and  taken  to  the  hills,  in  the  hope  of  finding  their  way  to 
Catana.  When  night  came  the  generals  ordered  fires  to  be  lighted 
to  deceive  the  enemy,  and  led  off  their  remaining  troops  with  such 
speed  as  they  could.  Nicias,  with  the  smaller  half  of  the  army,  got 
clear  away  and  gained  some  miles  on  his  pursuers;  but  Demos- 
thenes, who  had  lost  his  way  in  the  darkness,  w-as  struggling  along 
far  to  the  rear.  In  the  morning  the  Syracusans  found  the  enemy 
vanished,  and  started  off  in  hot  haste  to  pursue  him.  They  came 
up  with  Demosthenes's  corps  as  it  was  making  its  way  through  a 
narrow  defile.  The  Athenians  made  little  resistance;  many  were 
cut  down,  the  main  body  took  refuge  in  a  walled  enclosure  which 
they  held  for  a  few  hours.     Then,  finding  themselves  entirely  sur- 


EXPEDITION   TO   SICILY  347 

413  B.C. 

rounded,  they  laid  down  their  arms  on  condition  that  their  Hves 
should  be  spared.  Six  thousand  men  were  taken  here;  a  much  larger 
number  had  fallen  or  been  captured  before  the  final  surrender. 
Demosthenes  threw  himself  upon  his  sword  when  the  surrender 
took  place ;  but  the  w^ound  was  not  mortal,  and  he  was  borne  back, 
still  living,  to  Syracuse. 

Meanwhile  Nicias,  relieved  for  a  day  from  the  pressure  of  the 
enemy  on  his  rear,  had  forced  the  passage  of  the  river  Cacyparis, 
and  made  considerable  progress  southward.  But  on  the  next  day 
the  Syracusan  horse  reappeared  to  molest  his  march,  and  brought 
him  news  of  the  capture  of  Demosthenes.  Gylippus  now  bade  the 
Athenian  surrender ;  but  Nicias,  making  a  final  effort,  pushed  on 
as  far  as  the  river  Asinarus,  though  his  men  were  now  so  famished 
and  weary  that  it  was  hard  to  get  them  to  move.  By  the  time  that 
the  river  was  reached  the  Syracusans  had  gone  round  and  occupied 
the  further  bank.  Hundreds  of  the  Athenians  perished  in  the 
stream  as  they  strove  to  cross ;  as  many  were  trodden  down  in 
the  narrow  ford  by  their  comrades  as  fell  by  the  darts  of  the  Siceli- 
ots.  Soon  the  resistance  ceased ;  Nicias  gave  himself  up  to  Gylip- 
pus, and  such  of  his  followers  as  were  granted  quarter  by  the 
exultant  enemy  were  sent  to  join  the  troops  of  Demosthenes  in  cap- 
tivity. A  few  scores  at  most  escaped  to  the  hills  and  reached 
Catana. 

"  Thus  ended,"  says  Thucydides,  "  the  greatest  adventure  that 
the  Greeks  entered  into  during  this  war,  and  in  my  opinion  the 
greatest  in  which  Greeks  were  ever  concerned;  the  one  most  splen- 
did for  the  conquerors  and  most  disastrous  for  the  conquered ; 
for  they  suffered  no  common  defeat,  but  were  absolutely  annihi- 
lated,— land  army,  fleet  and  all, — and,  of  many  thousands  only  a 
handful  ever  returned  home." 

The  Syracusans  used  their  victory  in  no  gentle  spirit.  In  spite 
of  the  remonstrances  of  Gylippus,  they  put  to  death  the  two  un- 
fortunate generals  who  had  fallen  into  their  hands. ^  All  Greece 
lamented  Nicias,  "  the  most  respectable  man  of  his  age,"  whose 
private  virtues,  moderation,  and  love  of  peace  should  have  earned 
him  a  better  fate.  But  in  troublous  times  incompetence  incurs  a 
greater  punishment  than  crime.      It  'cannot  be  denied  that  the  half- 

>•  Thucydides  says  that  they  were  actually  executed;  other  authorities,  that 
they  slew  themselves  to  avoid  the  ignominy  of  a  public  execution,  having  been 
forewarned  of  their  fate  by  Gylippus,  or  by  the  Syracusan  general  Hermocrates. 


348  GREECE 

413   B.C. 

hearted  and  dilatory  proceedings  of  Nicias  were  the  chief  cause  of 
the  great  disaster  in  which  he  perished.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the 
supineness  with  which  he  conducted  his  operations  at  first,  or  the 
obstinacy  which  he  displayed  in  refusing  to  bring  the  expedi- 
tion home  when  fortune  had  turned  against  him,  was  the  more  fatal 
to  the  expedition.  At  any  rate,  this  respectable  man  dragged  down 
to  death  his  able  colleague  Demosthenes,  lost  his  country  the  largest 
and  finest  armament  it  had  ever  sent  out,  and  ultimately  brought 
about  the  downfall  of  its  imperial  power. 

The  prisoners  who  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Syra- 
cusans  were  hardly  better  treated  than  their  generals.  They  were 
shut  up  for  safe  custody  in  the  quarries  which  abounded  on  the  hill- 
sides of  Epipolae,  with  no  protection  from  the  sun  or  the  rain,  and 
a  very  insufficient  ration  of  bread  and  water,  only  half  the  ordinary 
dole  of  a  slave,  to  keep  body  and  soul  together.  Worn  out  by  their 
late  exertions,  and  exposed  to  absolute  famine,  they  began  to  die 
off  like  flies  as  the  unhealthful  weather  of  the  autumn  set  in.  The 
Syracusans  let  the  corpses  lie  unburied  among  the  surviving  pris- 
oners till  the  stench  bred  an  infectious  fever  that  threatened  to 
spread  into  the  city.  After  seventy  days,  all  but  the  native  Atheni- 
ans and  those  of  their  allies  who  were  Siceliots  were  sold  by  auction 
as  slaves.  The  remainder  were  exposed  to  the  miseries  of  the  quar- 
ries for  eight  months  till  the  greater  portion  of  them  perished. 
Those  who  still  survived  seem  then  to  have  been  sold  into  slavery 
like  their  companions.  We  read  that  pity  for  their  fate,  and  ad- 
miration for  the  calm  courage  with  which  they  supported  their  mis- 
fortunes, finally  led  to  the  release  of  the  greater  number  of  them. 
But  hardly  one  in  ten  of  those  who  had  sailed  forth  in  such  ex- 
uberant hopefulness  to  subdue  Sicily  ever  saw  his  home  again. 


Chapter    XXXIII 

DECLINE  OF  ATHENS,  413-41 1  B.C. 

THE  final  disaster  of  the  Athenians  in  Sicily  had  befallen 
them  about  the  middle  of  the  month  of  September;  some 
weeks  later  confused  rumors  of  it  began  to  spread  through 
Greece,  reaching  Sparta  and  Corinth  long  before  they  arrived  at 
Athens.  We  are  assured  by  Plutarch  that  the  news  first  came  to 
those  who  were  most  concerned  in  it  in  the  most  casual  way.  A 
seafaring  stranger  landed  at  Peiraeus  and  entered  a  barber's  shop, 
where  he  began  speaking  of  the  deaths  of  Nicias  and  Demosthenes 
as  events  already  known  to  everyone.  The  barber  no  sooner  heard 
the  story  than  he  ran  up  to  Athens  to  give  information  to  the 
magistrates.  But  when  he  was  brought  forward,  interrogated  as 
to  the  particulars  of  the  disaster  and  told  to  produce  his  informant, 
the  poor  man  was  at  a  loss.  There  was  no  one  to  corroborate  his 
tale,  and  as  the  news  seemed  perfectly  incredible  to  those  who  had 
seen  the  two  magnificent  armaments  sail  forth  against  Syracuse, 
he  was  treated  as  a  forger  of  false  news  and  sentenced  to  be  ex- 
posed on  the  wheel.  He  had  been  suffering  the  torture  some  time, 
when  several  soldiers,  who  had  escaped  from  Sicily  before  the  final 
surrender,  appeared  to  bear  out  his  tale.  But  even  when  well- 
known  and  respectable  citizens,  who  had  seen  the  fatal  end  of  the 
expedition,  came  straggling  back  to  Athens  with  full  particulars 
of  the  disaster,  the  people  refused  to  credit  them.  It  seemed  im- 
possible that  so  large  and  strong  a  fleet  and  army  could  perish  so 
utterly. 

Nevertheless  the  situation  had  to  be  faced.  It  was  of  no  use  to 
mob  the  orators  who  had  promoted  the  expedition,  or  to  denounce 
the  soothsayers  and  diviners  who  had  prophesied  its  success.  What 
had  to  be  done  was  to  take  stock  of  the  remaining  resources  of  the 
city,  and  to  see  if  the  naval  and  commercial  empire  of  Athens  could 
yet  be  preserved.  The  survey  did  not  promise  well;  nearly  two 
hundred  ships  out  of  a  navy  that  had  never  numbered  more  than 
three  hundred  had  been  engulfed  in  the  disaster.    There  remained 

34.9 


350  GREECE 

418    B.C. 

to  Athens  only  a  squadron  of  twenty-six  vessels  at  Naupactus, 
and  some  thirty  or  forty  more  ready  for  service  in  home  waters. 
Three  thousand  seven  hundred  hoplites  had  been  lost  out  of  a 
force  that,  since  the  great  plague,  did  not  muster  more  than  ten  or 
eleven  thousand  men  fit  for  foreign  service.  Moreover,  the 
finances  of  the  state  had  been  drained  to  the  very  bottom  by  the 
expense  of  sending  forth  the  second  expedition  so  soon  after  the 
first.  Of  all  the  funds  that  had  been  stored  in  the  Acropolis, 
there  remained  only  the  thousand  talents  that  Pericles  had  set 
aside,  to  be  used  only  if  Athens  were  to  be  attacked  by  a  hostile 
fleet.  The  soil  of  Attica  had  just  been  ravaged  by  an  army  of 
overpowering  strength,  and  the  fort  at  Decelea  showed  that  the 
Spartans  were  about  to  adopt  a  new  and  annoying  method  of 
warfare.  Already  some  thousands  of  slaves  had  deserted  to  that 
post,  which  offered  them  a  close  and  easy  refuge  from  their 
masters. 

Nor  was  this  all.  At  any  moment  a  Peloponnesian  squadron 
might  insult  the  scantily  guarded  coast  of  Attica,  and  ere  long  the 
confederate  fleet  which  had  conquered  at  Syracuse  might  be  ex- 
pected to  appear  in  overwhelming  force  in  the  waters  of  the  Aegean. 
Athens  might  well  have  despaired,  and  sent  to  ask  from  her 
enemies  what  terms  they  would  be  pleased  to  grant  her.  It  is  sur- 
prising to  learn  that  she  showed  no  signs  of  doing  so ;  on  the  con- 
trary, crippled  and  beggared  though  she  was,  she  nerved  herself 
for  a  second  struggle,  not  less  lengthy  and  far  more  desperate  than 
that  which  had  raged  between  431  b.c.  and  422  B.C.  The  deadly 
fear  of  the  moment,  says  Thucydides,  drove  the  democracy  into  a 
mood  of  discipline  and  self-restraint  to  which  it  had  long  been  a 
stranger.  A  committee  of  public  safety  was  elected  and  entrusted 
with  absolute  power  for  the  crisis ;  every  source  of  expenditure  in 
the  city  that  could  be  dispensed  with  was  cut  down ;  the  thousand 
talents  which  Pericles  had  laid  by  were  voted  as  supply  for  building 
a  new  fleet;  contributions  of  money  and  ship-timber  were  requisi- 
tioned from  the  allies,  and  garrisons  were  sent  to  Euboea  and  cer- 
tain other  strategical  points. 

All  this  preparation  would  have  been  useless  if  the  Spartans 
had  taken  time  by  the  forelock  and  attacked  Athens  by  sea  and 
land  the  moment  that  the  result  of  the  fighting  at  Syracuse  was 
known.  But  Sparta  was  ever  dilatory ;  her  rulers  resolved  to  make 
a  great  effort,  but  took  their  time  to  prepare  it.    Instead  of  in- 


DECLINE   OF   ATHENS  351 

412  B.C. 

stantly  blockading  Peiraeus  with  every  vessel  they  could  muster, 
they  decided  to  spend  the  winter  in  constructing  a  fleet  of  over- 
whelming strength,  and  to  defer  operations  till  the  spring.  It 
seems  not  to  have  occurred  to  them  that  while  they  were  building 
new  triremes  their  enemies  also  would  have  time  to  do  the  same. 
Naturally,  when  the  news  arrived  that  the  dockyards  of  Corinth 
and  Gytheum  and  Aulis  were  busy,  the  Athenians  commenced  to 
lay  down  new  keels  in  every  slip  that  Peiraeus  could  provide;  by 
the  midsummer  of  412  B.C.  they  calculated  on  having  a  hundred 
vessels  ready  for  sea. 

The  winter  of  413-412  B.C.  was  spent  in  these  preparations  on 
each  side,  and  Athens  obtained  the  respite  which  she  so  much 
needed.  But  meanwhile  the  members  of  the  Confederacy  of  Delos 
were  realizing  the  position;  in  well-nigh  every  state  there  was  a 
powerful  oligarchic  faction  eager  for  independence,  which  had  long 
been  waiting  for  an  opportunity  to  revolt  from  Athens.  The 
democratic  party  in  each  city,  on  the  other  hand,  preserved  but  a 
passive  and  unenthusiastic  Loyalty  towards  its  suzerain,  and  was 
quite  unprepared  to  make  any  sacrifice  in  her  behalf.  The  reverses 
of  Athens  gave  to  the  one  faction  a  motive  for  instant  rebellion, 
and  laid  before  the  other  a  chilling  prospect  of  additional  taxes  and 
contributions  if  they  adhered  to  their  ancient  mistress.  Accord- 
ingly most  of  the  leading  states  of  Ionia  sent  secret  emissaries  to 
Sparta  or  Thebes,  offering  to  cast  off  the  Athenian  yoke  the 
moment  that  a  Peloponnesian  fleet  should  appear  in  Asiatic  waters. 
The  Chians  sent  emissaries  to  Sparta  and  opened  negotiations  with 
the  ephors  through  the  medium  of  Alcibiades,  who  was  the  close 
friend  of  Endius,  the  most  prominent  member  of  the  Ephoralty. 
The  Lesbians  and  Euboeans  made  a  similar  application  to  King 
Agis,  who  was  occupied  in  Northern  Greece  and  had  planted  his 
headquarters  at  Decelea.  Pharnabazus,  the  Persian  satrap  of  the 
lands  on  the  Hellespont,  sent,  in  behalf  of  himself  and  of  several 
Greek  cities  in  his  neighborhood,  to  beg  for  the  dispatch  of  a  fleet 
to  the  Propontis.  Tissaphernes,  the  satrap  of  Lydia,  made  a 
similar  request,  and  supported  the  demand  of  the  Chians.  Each  of 
these  barbarians  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  break-up  of  the 
Athenian  empire  would  give  him  an  opportunity  of  recovering 
some  of  the  lost  coast-land  of  his  satrapy.  They  vied  with  each 
other  in  promising  assistance,  both  in  men  and  money,  if  once  a 
Peloponnesian  fleet  should  cross  the  Aegean. 


852  GREECE 

412  B.C. 

The  Spartans  resolved  to  send  first  to  Chios,  the  most  power- 
ful of  the  disaffected  states,  and  afterwards  to  aid  Lesbos  and  the 
cities  of  the  Hellespont,  But,  instead  of  concentrating  their  fleet, 
they  sent  out  small  squadrons  piecemeal,  just  as  each  could  be  got 
ready  for  sea.  The  first  which  sailed  consisted  of  twenty  Cor- 
inthian ships,  but  this  was  intercepted  and  blockaded  off  the  Argive 
coast  by  the  Athenian  home-fleet.  However,  the  Spartan  admiral, 
Chalcideus,  slipped  out  from  Gytheum  with  five  vessels,  taking  with 
him  Alcibiades  as  a  volunteer,  and  safely  reached  Chios.  That 
great  city  at  once  revolted,  and  placed  its  fleet  of  thirty  ships  at  the 
disposal  of  the  Spartan.  Clazomenae,  Erythrae,  and  Teos  soon 
followed  the  example  of  Chios;  it  was  to  no  effect  that  the  Athe- 
nians hurried  off  every  galley  that  could  possibly  be  got  to  sea. 
The  mischief  was  done  before  the  first  of  them  could  reach  Ionia. 

A  desultory  naval  campaign  now  began  off  the  Asiatic  coast; 
it  was  full  of  unforeseen  turns  of  fortune,  for  each  side  was  alter- 
nately receiving  reinforcements  from  home,  and  obtaining  a  pre- 
carious superiority  over  the  enemy.  The  balance  of  success,  how- 
ever, lay  with  the  Spartans.  Although  they  failed  at  Mitylene, 
which  revolted  but  was  recaptured,  they  won  great  successes  in  other 
quarters.  Miletus,  still  a  great  town,  though  no  longer  the  metrop- 
olis of  Ionia,  joined  them  with  enthusiasm ;  lasus,  which  resisted 
them,  was  taken  by  storm.  At  the  approach  of  autumn  their  su- 
periority was  made  more  marked  by  the  arrival  of  a  considerable 
fleet  from  Syracuse.  The  Siceliots  had  determined  to  repay 
Athens  for  her  unprovoked  aggression  in  415  b.c.^  and  sent  their 
favorite  general,  Hermocrates,  with  twenty-two  ships  to  aid  in  revo- 
lutionizing Ionia. 

It  says  more  for  the  facility  than  for  the  Hellenic  patriotism 
of  the  Spartan  admirals  that  they  entered  into  very  humiliating 
terms  of  alliance  with  the  Persian  satraps  of  the  neighborhood. 
An  agreement  drawn  up  between  Chalcideus  and  Tissaphemes 
actually  stipulated  that,  in  return  for  supplies  of  money,  Sparta 
should  help  the  Persian  to  take  back  "all  that  the  Great  King's 
forefathers  had  held  in  Asia " ;  a  phrase  which,  if  pressed  to  its 
logical  meaning,  would  have  surrendered  Miletus,  Clazomenae,  and 
the  other  mainland  towns  into  the  power  of  King  Darius.  Asty- 
ochus,  who  succeeded  Chalcideus,  thought  the  wording  of  the  treaty 
objectionable,  and  substituted  for  the  original  clause  another, 
which  merely  declared  that  "  the  Lacedaemonians  and  their  allies 


DECLINE   OF   ATHENS  353 

411    B.C. 

should  not  proceed  to  attack  any  city  which  belonged  to  King 
Darius  or  his  ancestors."  This  change  relieved  the  Spartans  of  the 
obligation  to  assist  the  Great  King  in  recovering  the  Greek  towns 
which  had  once  been  his,  but  bound  them  to  stand  by  and  permit 
the  restoration  of  the  Persian  power,  if  the  satraps  were  strong 
enough  to  effect  it.  Though  less  disgraceful  in  form,  the  second 
treaty  was  as  despicable  in  spirit  as  the  first. 

The  first  year  of  war  after  the  Syracusan  disaster  had  failed  to 
ruin  Athens ;  it  had  seen  the  revolt  of  some  of  her  most  important 
allies,  but  she  still  kept  up  the  fight,  favored  by  the  dilatoriness 
and  want  of  fixed  purpose  which  the  Spartan  Government  and  the 
Spartan  commanders  had  alike  displayed.  The  respite  had  allowed 
her  to  build  and  launch  a  formidable  fleet,  and  she  was  now  in  a 
position  to  struggle  on,  putting  off  by  her  desperate  efforts  the 
final  day  of  disaster,  which  was  bound  to  arrive  at  no  very  distant 
date.  For  when  once  the  great  Ionian  towns  had  committed  them- 
selves to  revolt,  there  was  no  hope  that  the  Athenian  empire  could 
be  kept  together. 

For  the  ensuing  period  of  the  war  the  operations  of  the 
Athenians  were  carried  on  from  the  base  of  Samos.  In  that  island 
the  democratic  faction  had  just  risen,  and  massacred  some  hun- 
dreds of  oligarchs.  This  action  bound  them  by  the  tie  of  fear  to 
their  suzerain,  for  they  knew  that  the  victory  of  Sparta  would  be 
followed  by  the  reestablishment  of  a  philo-Laconian  oligarchy, 
which  would  take  ample  revenge  for  the  late  slaughter.  Samos 
was  nearer  to  Athens  than  any  other  of  the  great  Ionian  ports,  and 
lay  in  an  advantageous  position,  enabling  its  possessors  to  intercept 
communications  between  the  two  chief  areas  of  revolt — the  north- 
ern, which  centered  at  Chios,  and  the  southern,  which  lay  around 
Miletus. 

In  the  early  spring  of  411  B.C.  a  further  disaster  befell  the 
Athenians  by  the  revolt  of  the  three  cities  of  the  great  island  of 
Rhodes.  The  Athenians  from  Samos  sailed  to  recover  the  island, 
but,  when  faced  by  the  combined  force  of  the  Peloponnesian  and 
Chian  fleets,  declined  the  battle,  on  account  of  their  decided  inferi- 
ority in  numbers.  After  this,  however,  the  success  of  the  Spartans 
came  to  a  standstill ;  their  monetary  resources  had  been  exhausted 
by  the  expense  of  keeping  a  great  armada  at  sea  for  a  whole  year, 
and  their  chief  paymaster,  the  satrap  Tissaphernes,  was  beginning 
to  slacken  in  his  granting  of  subsidies. 


354  GREECE 

411    B.C. 

The  Persian  is  said  to  have  been  turned  from  his  zeal  for  the 
Spartan  cause  by  the  advice  of  Alcibiades.  That  volatile  per- 
sonage had  sailed  for  Asia  with  the  full  intention  of  doing  all  in 
his  power  to  spread  the  revolt;  but  renegades  are  always  distrusted 
by  those  they  serve,  and  Alcibiades  had,  in  addition,  made  himself 
personally  hateful  to  some  of  the  leading  men  in  Sparta.  His 
crowning  offense  is  said  to  have  been  that  he  seduced  the  wife  of 
King  Agis.  He  soon  found  that  he  was  regarded  with  suspicion 
by  his  colleagues,  and  after  an  unsuccessful  engagement  in  front  of 
Miletus,  which  had  been  entered  into  by  his  advice,  was  constrained 
to  quit  the  Spartan  camp,  in  fear  for  his  life.  He  betook  himself 
to  the  court  of  Tissaphernes,  with  whom  he  soon  contrived  to  in- 
gratiate himself,  by  the  perfect  knowledge  both  of  Spartan  and 
Athenian  plans  which  he  displayed,  and  by  the  ingenuity  with 
which  he  pushed  the  satrap's  interests.  He  pointed  out  to  the 
Persian  that  if  he  lavished  his  resources  on  the  Peloponnesian  fleet, 
and  allowed  the  Athenians  to  be  crushed,  he  would  find  that  he 
had  only  replaced  the  Athenian  empire  by  a  Spartan  empire. 
Athens  was  a  naval  power  desirous  only  of  holding  the  seacoast; 
but  the  Lacedaemonians,  who  had  always  aimed  at  empire  on  land, 
would  be  dangerous  neighbors,  likely  to  covet  the  conquest  of  the 
inner  districts  of  Asia  Minor.  The  wisest  course  would  be  to  let 
the  two  Greek  powers  wear  down  each  other's  resources,  and  mean- 
while to  lay  hands  quietly  on  every  Ionian  town  that  could  be 
secured,  and  hold  it  nominally  against  the  Athenians,  but  really 
for  the  Great  King. 

Tissaphernes  saw  the  force  of  this  advice,  and  promptly  cut 
down  by  half  the  supplies  of  money  he  had  been  furnishing  to  the 
Spartans.  He  also  kept  them  inactive  by  promising  the  aid  of  a 
Phoenician  fleet  which  never  arrived ;  and  when  the  commanders 
complained  to  him,  put  them  off  with  personal  bribes,  but  did  not 
do  anything  for  their  armament.  Finding  Tissaphernes  so  ready 
to  take  his  advice,  Alcibiades  began  to  think  out  a  new  method  of 
turning  his  influence  with  the  satrap  to  good  account.  A  short 
experience  of  the  narrow  meanness  of  Spartan  life  and  the  soulless 
pomp  of  an  Oriental  court  had  set  him  longing  for  the  free  and 
liberal  atmosphere  of  Athens.  He  began  to  dream  of  securing  his 
return  from  exile  by  propitiating  Athenian  public  opinion  by  some 
extraordinary  service.  Had  it  been  only  the  matter  of  the 
mysteries  that  stood  charged  to  his  score,  the  people  might  easily 


DECLINE   OF   ATHENS  355 

411    B.C. 

have  pardoned  him;  but  some  striking  feat  was  needed  to  atone 
for  his  flight  to  Sparta  and  his  too  effective  advice  that  Decelea 
should  be  fortified.  It  occurred  to  Alcibiades  that  if  he  could 
draw  Tissaphernes  over  to  the  Athenian  alliance,  and  induce  the 
Persian  to  open  his  purse  for  the  needs  of  the  well-nigh  bankrupt 
city,  his  pardon  might  possibly  be  granted. 

Accordingly  he  began  to  sound  his  private  friends  in  the 
Athenian  armament  at  Samos,  to  see  how  they  liked  the  idea.  He 
found  that  there  was  a  strong  party  in  the  camp  who  were  longing 
to  get  rid  of  the  democratic  government  at  Athens;  it  was  the 
democracy  which  had  been  responsible  for  the  Sicilian  expedition, 
and  the  wealthier  and  landed  classes  were  now  suffering  for  its  sins 
by  the  ruin  of  their  estates.  Accordingly  he  found  it  easy  to 
spread  a  report  among  the  malcontents  that  if  the  present  constitu- 
tion were  overturned  in  Athens,  and  an  oligarchic  government  in- 
stalled in  its  place,  he  could  undertake  to  bring  over  Tissaphernes 
to  the  Athenian  alliance ;  without  a  change  the  Persian  could  not  be 
won,  for  he  had  a  rooted  distrust  of  democracies.  The  intrigue 
prospered  even  better  than  Alcibiades  had  ventured  to  hope;  many 
officers  of  note  in  the  force  at  Samos  furthered  it  with  zeal,  and  a 
deputation  of  them,  headed  by  the  General  Peisander,  sailed  across 
to  Athens  to  enlist  recruits  in  its  favor.  The  only  man  who  op- 
posed the  scheme  was  Phrynichus,  another  of  the  generals,  and  he 
set  himself  against  it,  not  because  he  disliked  an  oligarchy,  but 
merely  because  he  had  a  personal  grudge  against  Alcibiades.  The 
main  mass  of  the  army  was  imperfectly  informed  about  the 
intrigue ;  and  though  it  suspected  and  disliked  the  proposals  of  the 
conspirators,  it  was  content  to  let  matters  take  their  course,  if 
thereby  the  aid  of  Persia  could  be  secured. 

Peisander  and  the  oligarchs  from  Samos  made  no  secret  of 
their  plans  at  Athens ;  they  boldly  laid  the  proposals  of  Alcibiades 
before  the  Ecclesia ;  they  pointed  out  that  if  affairs  went  on  as 
they  had  been  doing  of  late,  the  ruin  of  Athens  must  be  close  at 
hand,  while  the  Persian  alliance  would  save  the  state.  The  price 
to  be  paid,  the  sacrifice  of  the  cherished  democratic  constitution, 
was  heavy;  but  was  not  any  sacrifice  preferable  to  destruction? 
One  after  another  the  enemies  of  Alcibiades  rose  to  recall  the 
misdeeds  of  the  renegade  statesman ;  demagogues  denounced  his 
lawless  insolence,  and  priests  expatiated  upon  his  sacrilegious  out- 
rages,  and  warned  the  people  not  to   draw   down   the  wrath  of 


356  GREECE 

411  B.C. 

Heaven  by  recalling  him.  But  of  every  speaker  Peisander  asked 
the  same  unanswerable  question — Was  it  not  true  that  the  Spar- 
tans were  superior  at  sea,  that  the  allies  were  revolting-,  that 
the  treasury  of  the  state  was  empty;  if  so,  could  they  suggest  any 
better  way  of  staving  off  the  impending  ruin?  After  a  long  and 
tumultuous  debate,  the  people,  convinced  against  their  will,  voted 
that  Peisander  and  ten  commissioners  with  him  should  sail  to 
Asia,  and  open  negotiations  with  Alcibiades  and  Tissaphernes,  on 
such  terms  as  they  could  secure. 

Before  starting,  Peisander  set  working  all  the  oligarchic  in- 
fluences which  could  be  utilized  in  Athens  for  the  overthrow  of  the 
constitution.  He  stirred  up  the  numerous  political  clubs,  which 
existed  for  purposes  of  influencing  elections  and  trials,  and  ex- 
horted them  to  unite  and  act  without  fear  or  scruple  when  a  favor- 
able moment  arrived.  The  rhetorician  Antiphon,  a  skillful  wire- 
puller who  took  no  ostensible  part  in  politics,  but  was  deep  in  all 
the  secrets  of  the  party,  was  entrusted  with  the  management  of  the 
conspiracy.  Other  leaders  were  soon  forthcoming,  among  them 
many  men  who  had  never  been  suspected  of  any  disloyalty  to  the 
democratic  constitution,  and  everything  was  prepared  for  a  vigor- 
ous coup  d'etat. 

But  when  Peisander  and  his  colleagues  had  returned  to  Asia 
and  arrived  at  the  court  of  Tissaphernes,  a  new  complication  arose. 
Alcibiades  found  that  he  had  much  less  influence  with  the  satrap 
than  he  had  supposed,  and  could  not  prevail  on  him  to  take  any 
steps  towards  concluding  an  alliance  with  Athens ;  all  that  the 
Persian  would  do  was  to  stint  his  supplies  to  the  Peloponnesians, 
and  keep  their  fleet  idle.  When  placed  in  the  dilemma,  and  forced 
to  confess  that  he  was  either  unwilling  or  unable  to  carry  out  his 
promises,  Alcibiades  took  refuge  in  evasions.  He  pretended  that 
Tissaphernes  was  still  willing  to  conclude  a  treaty,  but  proposed  as 
preliminary  conditions  that  the  Athenians  should  surrender  to  him 
all  the  subject-cities  on  the  mainland  of  Asia.  When  his  exor- 
bitant demand  was  reluctantly  granted,  he  began  to  ask  for  the 
Asiatic  islands  also,  and  made  himself  so  impracticable  that  the 
ambassadors  in  great  wrath  broke  off  the  negotiations  and  re- 
turned to  Samos. 

While  these  intrigues  were  in  progress  the  war  dragged  itself 
slowly  on,  without  any  important  action.  As  the  Spartan  fleet  lay 
immovable  at   Rhodes,   the  Athenians   from   Samos   succeeded   in 


DECLINE   OF   ATHENS  357 

411    B.C. 

establishing  a  blockade  round  Chios,  and  even  landed  troops  on 
that  island,  but  did  not  make  any  great  progress  towards  its  re- 
duction.    Elsewhere  the  war  stood  still. 

The  failure  of  Peisander's  negotiations  with  Alcibiades  placed 
the  oligarchic  party  in  a  very  difficult  position.  They  had  made 
all  arrangements  for  a  revolution,  and  gone  so  far  that  it  was 
difficult  to  stop.  At  home  the  clubs  had  been  hard  at  work;  pro- 
prosals  had  been  mooted  to  entrust  the  conduct  of  the  war  to  some 
less  unwieldy  body  than  the  Ecclesia,  to  abolish  all  payments  to 
dicasts  and  ecclesiasts,  and  to  save  the  scanty  revenue  of  the  state 
to  maintain  the  soldiers  and  seamen  in  active  service.  These  pro- 
posals provoked  opposition  from  the  democratic  party;  but  when 
Androcles,  the  leading  demagogue  of  the  day,  and  several  of  his 
supporters  were  promptly  slain  by  assassins,  the  people  were  cowed, 
and  open  resistance  to  the  oligarchic  agitation  almost  entirely 
ceased.  Conscious  that  a  great  plot  was  on  foot,  but  ignorant  of 
its  extent  and  objects,  the  mass  of  the  citizens  waited  passively 
to  see  what  was  going  to  happen. 

Emboldened  by  the  impunity  which  they  were  enjoying,  the 
oligarchs  resolved  to  carry  out  their  plans,  even  though  Alcibiades 
had  played  them  false.  Many  of  them  felt  all  the  more  confident 
from  not  having  the  over-subtle  exile  on  their  side;  and  several 
men  of  importance,  including  the  ex-General  Phrynichus,  joined 
the  party  when  once  they  knew  that  Alcibiades  was  not  to  have 
any  control  over  its  actions.  It  was  resolved  that  a  simultaneous 
attempt  should  be  made  to  win  over  to  the  oligarchy  the  fleet  at 
Samos  and  the  city  of  Athens. 

At  Samos  the  plot  failed ;  when  the  oligarchs,  allied  with  the 
aristocratic  party  among  the  Samians,  rose  in  arms  under  the 
General  Charminos,  they  found  themselves  too  weak  for  their 
task.  After  slaying  a  few  of  their  opponents, — among  them  the 
exiled  Athenian  demagogue  Hyperbolus,  who  had  been  for  some 
time  resident  at  Samos, — they  were  put  down  by  force  of  numbers. 
The  Samian  democracy  and  the  majority  of  the  Athenians  from 
the  fleet  combined  against  them,  and  crushed  them  without  any 
serious  fighting.  The  moment  that  the  rising  was  suppressed,  the 
victors  sent  home  the  state-galley  called  the  Paraluis  with  the 
news. 

When  the  Paralus  arrived  at  Athens,  that  city  was  found  to 
have  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  oligarchs.     The  revolution  at 


358  GREECE 

411   B.C. 

Athens  had  been  conducted  with  more  dexterity  and  less  violence 
than  that  at  Samos.  Peisander,  Antiphon,  and  Phrynichns  had 
determined  to  avoid  open  fighting  if  possible.  When  they  knew 
that  the  Ecclesia  had  been  frightened  and  paralyzed  by  the  sudden 
murder  of  Androcles  and  other  democratic  leaders,  they  brought 
forward  a  motion  that  ten  ^  commissioners  should  be  appointed 
to  lay  before  the  people  a  scheme  of  constitutional  reform.  This 
proposal  was  carried ;  a  few  days  after,  the  commissioners,  who  had 
been  carefully  chosen  from  among  the  oligarchs,  summoned  the 
Ecclesia  to  meet,  not  on  the  Pnyx,  but  at  the  temple  of  Poseidon 
at  Colonus,  a  suburb  a  mile  without  the  city. 

The  democracy,  suspecting  some  snare — perhaps  an  attack 
from  the  garrison  of  Decelea — would  not  trust  themselves  outside 
the  walls  of  Athens,  and  a  packed  and  scanty  meeting  at  Colonus 
was  able  to  vote  away  the  time-honored  constitution  of  Cleis- 
thenes.  On  the  proposal  of  Peisander,  a  bill  was  carried  to  elect 
five  men  as  presidents,  who  again  should  choose  a  hundred,  and 
each  of  these  hundred  three  men  more,  and  that  the  whole  body, 
four  hundred  strong,  should  assume  the  government  of  the  state 
in  place  of  the  archons  and  the  senate.  They  were  to  be  responsible 
to  a  body  of  five  thousand  full  citizens,  chosen  by  themselves;  the 
rest  of  the  Athenians  were  practically  disfranchised.^ 

When  the  assembly  had  dispersed,  without  a  single  voice  be- 
ing raised  against  the  bill,  the  Four  Hundred  marched  on  the  Pry- 
taneum,  follov^^ed  by  a  body  of  hoplites  who  had  been  secretly  got 
together  for  their  assistance.  They  found  the  senate  in  session, 
and  summoned  it  to  disperse ;  the  senators  were  no  less  terror- 
stricken  than  the  people,  and  obeyed  the  command;  as  they  went 
out  each  was  given  the  public  allowance  of  money  due  to  him  for 
the  remainder  of  his  term  of  office.  We  do  not  hear  that  a  single 
man  dared  to  resent  the  insult.  Having  cleared  out  their  prede- 
cessors, the  Four  Hundred  did  solemn  sacrifice,  and  assumed  all 
the  functions  of  government. 

Their  first  step  was  to  send  to  King  Agis  at  Decelea,  to  inform 
him  that  a  philo-Spartan  oligarchy  was  installed  in  power,  and 
anxious  to  treat  for  terms  of  peace.  Agis,  however,  instead  of 
treating,  made  a  rapid  march  on  Athens,  thinking  to  find  it  in 

1  Thucydides  says  ten:  the  new  lluhrsca  rwv  'Adrjvaiiov  thirty. 
-  So    Thucydides.     The    rather    confused    account    in    the     UoXirsia     ruiv 
*AOi^vaiwv  says  that  the  400  were  elected  by  the  tribes,  40  by  each. 


DECLINE   OF   ATHENS  359 

411   B.C. 

open  sedition,  and  easily  to  be  captured  by  a  vigorous  coup  de 
main.  His  plan,  however,  v^as  foiled;  the  gates  were  closed  and 
the  walls  manned,  so  that,  after  losing  a  few  men  in  a  sally,  he  was 
fain  to  return  in  haste  to  Decelea.  When  the  Four  Hundred 
again  made  overtures  to  him,  he  received  them  with  greater  re- 
spect, and  forwarded  their  envoys  to  the  ephors  at  Lacedaemon. 

The  Paralus  arrived  at  the  Peiraeus,  with  the  news  of  the  sup- 
pression of  the  oligarchic  rising  in  Samos,  shortly  after  the  Four 
Hundred  had  taken  over  the  conduct  of  affairs.  Fearing  lest  the 
democracy  should  be  encouraged  to  revolt  when  the  events  at 
Samos  became  known,  the  new  rulers  imprisoned  some  of  the 
crew  of  the  Paralus,  and  sent  the  rest  off  at  once  to  cruise  round 
Euboea,  But  Chaereas,  the  captain  of  the  vessel,  escaped  and  re- 
turned at  once  to  Samos,  where  he  laid  the  news  of  the  revolution 
before  the  army.  A  great  burst  of  democratic  feeling  swept 
through  the  ranks  of  the  soldiery  when  the  tale  of  Peisander's 
intrigues  was  heard ;  they  deposed  all  the  generals  and  trierarchs 
who  were  suspected  of  oligarchic  leanings,  and  placed  at  their  head 
two  officers  named  Thrasybiilus  and  Thrasyllus,  whose  loyalty  was 
undoubted.  At  a  solemn  assembly  the  whole  army  swore  "  to 
hold  to  the  democracy,  to  live  in  concord,  to  zealously  prosecute 
the  war  with  Sparta,  and  to  be  foes  to  the  Four  Hundred,  and  have 
no  intercourse  with  them."  All  the  Samians  of  the  democratic 
party  took  the  same  oath,  being  as  much  interested  as  the  Athenians 
themselves  in  the  suppression  of  oligarchic  plots.  Thrasybiilus 
and  his  colleagues  reasoned  that  as  the  whole  naval  force  of  Athens 
was  in  their  hands,  they  should  be  able  to  rescue  the  mother-city 
from  her  oppressors.  If  the  Four  Hundred  held  out  against  them, 
they  could  easily  make  Samos,  and  not  Athens,  the  seat  for  the 
time  being  of  the  Athenian  empire ;  for  the  allied  states  would  pay 
their  allegiance  and  hand  over  their  tribute  to  the  party  which 
controlled  the  fleet  of  Athens,  not  to  that  which  sat  helpless  and 
isolated  within  her  walls.  In  short,  the  army  claimed  to  represent 
the  Athenian  state,  and  resolved  to  make  no  account  of  the  usurp- 
ing Four  Hundred. 

Thrasybiilus  and  Thrasyllus  now  proposed  the  recall  of  Alci- 
biades  from  exile,  intending  to  enlist  his  influence  with  Tissaphernes 
on  the  side  of  the  democracy.  Their  proposal  was  welcomed  by 
the  army,  and,  after  four  years  of  banishment,  Alcibiades  appeared 
once  more  in  the  assembly  of  his  countrymen.     He  came  full  of 


360  GREECE 

411  B.C. 

protestations  of  his  good  will,  and  of  his  ability  to  bring  over  his 
friend  the  satrap  to  the  Athenian  cause;  his  promises  gained  such 
credit  that  he  was  at  once  elected  as  a  colleague  to  Thrasybiilus 
and  Thrasyllus,  and  granted  full  powers  to  treat  with  Tissaphernes. 
Accordingly  he  sailed  off  to  find  the  satrap,  who  lay  at  this  moment 
far  southward  in  the  Pamphylian  city  of  Aspendus. 

Tissaphernes  had  found  the  Peloponnesian  admirals  wrought 
up  to  a  dangerous  pitch  of  wrath  by  the  inactivity  to  which  he 
had  reduced  their  fleet,  and  by  his  constant  interviews  with  Al- 
cibiades;  accordingly  he  had  at  last  determined  to  bring  up  the 
Phoenician  fleet  to  their  aid.  There  were  more  than  a  hundred 
Phoenician  vessels  lying  at  Aspendus  when  i\lcibiades  arrived  at 
the  place.  Nevertheless,  the  Athenian  contrived  to  persuade  the 
satrap  to  send  the  ships  away,  though  he  had  only  just  brought 
them  on  to  the  scene  of  action.  The  fleet  returned  home,  and  the 
Spartans  were  more  than  ever  enraged  with  their  faithless  ally. 
The  most  important  result  of  this  diplomatic  success,  however,  was 
to  restore  Alcibiades  to  the  full  confidence  of  the  army  at  Samos 
who  believed  that  he  had  given  conclusive  proof  of  his  absolute 
control  over  the  mind  of  Tissaphernes — a  control  which  he  was  in 
reality  very  far  from  possessing. 

Meanwhile,  everything  at  Athens  was  conspiring  to  ruin  the 
cause  of  the  Four  Hundred.  Their  authority  received  a  desperate 
shock  when  the  news  of  the  events  at  Samos  became  known.  Dis- 
sensions, too,  broke  out  among  their  own  body.  The  more  violent 
party  under  Phrynichus  and  Antiphon  proposed  to  strengthen  their 
position  by  throwing  themselves  into  the  hands  of  the  Spartans, 
and  by  calling  Peloponnesian  troops  within  the  walls ;  for  this 
purpose  they  began  to  construct  a  fort  at  the  mole  of  Eetionea  in 
the  Peiraeus,  built  so  as  to  facilitate  the  entry  of  the  enemy.  Their 
desperate  treason  was  opposed  by  a  more  moderate  faction,  headed 
by  Theramenes,  a  supple  statesman  who  was  always  to  be  found  on 
the  safe  side.  Luckily  for  Athens,  the  Spartans  were  still  sus- 
picious of  the  good  faith  of  the  Four  Hundred,  and  were  so  tardy 
in  taking  advantage  of  the  civil  strife  in  the  city  that  they  once 
more  lost  their  opportunity.  The  first  blow  to  the  oligarchy  came 
from  the  assassination  of  Phrynicus ;  as  he  left  the  senate  house  he 
was  stabbed  by  a  young  soldier,  who  escaped,  though  the  deed  was 
wrought  at  midday  in  the  midst  of  the  market-place.  A  few  days 
later  a  body  of  hoplites  broke  into  open  mutiny,  seized  and  demol- 


DECLINE   OF   ATHENS  361 

411    B.C. 

ished  the  suspected  fort  at  Eetionea,  and  placed  Theramenes  at  their 
head. 

This  crisis  induced  the  Four  Hundred  to  take  measures  to 
render  their  power  more  popular,  by  calling  the  assembly  of  the 
Five  Thousand  into  existence :  hitherto  they  had  neglected  to  sum- 
mon it.  But  it  was  too  late;  open  war  seemed  about  to  break  out 
in  the  city;  the  oligarchs  held  the  senate  house,  while  the  mal- 
contents lay  round  the  temple  of  the  Dioscuri,  to  the  south  of  the 
Acropolis.  Suddenly,  however,  the  face  of  affairs  was  changed 
by  the  alarming  news  that  a  fleet  of  forty-two  Peloponnesian  ships 
was  threatening  Peiraeus.  Abandoning  their  dissensions,  both 
parties  ran  down  to  the  harbor  and  commenced  to  launch  every 
war-vessel  that  could  be  found.  The  Spartan  admiral  Agesan- 
dridas  had  come  prepared  to  take  advantage  of  the  treachery  of 
Phrynichus;  but  Phrynichus  was  dead,  and  his  fort  at  Eetionea 
destroyed.  Accordingly  the  Spartan  left  Peiraeus  behind,  rounded 
Sunium,  and  made  for  Euboea,  whose  malcontents  had  long  been 
praying  for  aid  to  enable  them  to  revolt.  Thirty-six  Athenian 
ships,  manned  in  hot  haste  and  very  imperfectly  fitted  out,  chased 
Agesandridas  up  the  Euboean  strait,  and  brought  him  to  action 
off  Eretria.  The  fight  resulted  in  the  complete  rout  of  the  ill- 
found  and  ill-handled  Athenian  fleet;  only  fourteen  vessels  suc- 
ceeded in  escaping  from  the  disaster.  The  moment  that  the  result 
of  the  battle  was  known,  every  city  in  Euboea  revolted  to  the  Spar- 
tans, with  the  single  exception  of  Histiaea,  which  was  held 
by  Athenian  cleruchs.  To  bind  the  island  to  the  mainland  and 
obviate  the  possibility  of  conquest,  the  Euboeans  and  their  conti- 
nental neighbors  of  Boeotia  combined  to  throw  a  bridge  over  the 
narrowest  point  of  the  Euripus,  just  opposite  Chalcis. 

The  loss  of  Euboea  was  a  terrible  blow  to  Athens ;  since  Attica 
had  become  unsafe,  it  had  been  customary  to  keep  in  that  spacious 
island  all  the  flocks  and  herds  which  supplied  the  city,  and  to 
utilize  it  as  a  storehouse  conveniently  placed  at  the  doors  of  Athens. 
The  news  of  its  revolt  almost  made  the  Athenians  despair;  even  the 
disaster  at  Syracuse  had  caused  less  dismay,  for  that  had  taken 
place  far  away,  while  the  battle  of  Eretria  had  been  fought  in  the 
home-waters  of  the  navy  of  Athens,  and  almost  under  the  eyes  of 
her  citizens. 

The  immediate  result  of  the  revolt  of  Euboea  was  the  final 
overthrow  of  the  Four  Hundred,  for  everyone  cast  the  responsi- 


362  GREECE 

411  B.C. 

bility  for  the  disaster  on  the  shoulders  of  those  whose  factious 
\-iolence  had  thrown  the  city  off  her  guard.  An  assembly  once 
more  met  on  the  Pnyx,  the  ancient  gathering-place  of  the  de- 
mocracy, and  formally  deposed  the  usurping  government.  The 
body  of  the  Five  Thousand  was  suffered  nominally  to  exist ;  but 
as  it  was  enacted  that  every  citizen  possessing  a  suit  of  armor 
should  be  included  in  the  number,  a  modified  democracy  was  in 
reality  restored.  The  same  assembly  passed  a  decree  authorizing 
the  return  of  Alcibiades  from  exile,  and  approving  of  all  the  ac- 
tions of  the  army  at  Samos. 

When  their  deposition  was  decreed,  the  Four  Hundred  dis- 
persed and  fled.  Peisander  and  most  of  his  colleagues  made  their 
way  to  Decelea ;  one  of  them,  the  General  Aristarchus,  signalized  his 
defection  by  inducing  the  blockaded  garrison  of  Oenoe,  a  strong 
fort  on  the  northern  border,  to  surrender  to  the  Boeotians,  on  a 
false  report  of  a  general  pacification.  A  few  of  the  more  notable 
members  of  the  Four  Hundred  were  caught,  brought  to  trial,  and 
executed.  Of  all  the  most  prominent  was  the  rhetorician  An- 
tiphon,  whose  speech  in  defense  of  his  actions  was  considered  the 
most  stirring  burst  of  eloquence  ever  heard  in  an  Athenian  law- 
court.  Nevertheless  he  was  condemned,  and  expiated  his  treason 
by  a  well-deserved  death.  Thus  fell  the  Four  Hundred,  after  a 
stormy  and  inglorious  rule  extending  over  no  more  than  four 
months.  The  net  result  of  their  conspiracy  was  a  small  gain — the 
abolition  of  pay  for  civil  duties, — and  the  great  loss — the  aban- 
donment of  Euboea.^ 

^  In  the  whole  matter  of  the  Four  Hundred  Thucydides  is  here  followed 
rather  than  the  Uohreia  raJv  'AOfj^atajv.  But  the  latter  certainly  appears  to  be 
drawing  from  official  documents,  though  quoting  them  in  a  very  confused  way. 


Chapter  XXXIV 

SURRENDER    OF    ATHENS,  404  B.C. 

IT  might  have  been  expected  that  the  civil  strife  caused  by  the 
usurpation  of  the  Four  Hundred  would  have  brought  about  the 
ruin  of  Athens.  But  once  more  the  slackness  and  want  of 
enterprise  of  the  Spartan  commanders  came  to  the  rescue  of  their 
enemies.  In  the  western  Aegean,  Agesandridas,  who  had  swept 
the  Athenian  home-fleet  off  the  water,  accomplished  nothing  more 
than  the  revolt  of  Euboea.  Though  completely  commanding  the 
sea,  he  made  no  attempt  to  blockade  Athens — a  feat  which  he 
could  have  accomplished  with  ease,  for  there  were  now  only  twenty 
ships  ready  for  service  at  Peiraeus.  After  lingering  some  time  by  the 
Euripus,  he  set  sail  eastward  to  reinforce  the  Peloponnesian  fleet 
in  Asia.  "  Truly,"  as  Thucydides  observes,  "  the  Spartans  were 
a  very  convenient  people  to  be  at  war  with" ;  they  generally  did 
what  their  enemy  most  desired. 

Meanwhile  the  Athenians  at  Samos  had  been  planning  an  expe- 
dition to  expel  the  Four  Hundred  from  the  mother-city,  a  design 
from  which  they  were  turned  by  Alcibiades,  who  persuaded  them 
to  persevere  in  the  defense  of  Ionia,  and  to  let  matters  at  home 
right  themselves.  This  advice  was  accepted,  and  the  Pelopon- 
nesian fleet  was  not  left  to  work  its  will  unresisted,  as  would  have 
been  the  case  if  the  expedition  to  Athens  had  been  carried  out. 
By  giving  this  counsel  Alcibiades  did  a  real  service  to  his  country 
for  the  first  time  in  his  whole  political  career. 

As  the  autumn  drew  near,  the  Peloponnesian  admiral  Mindarus 
gave  up  all  hopes  of  help  from  Tissaphernes,  and  resolved  to  shift 
the  scene  of  action  northward.  He  knew  that  the  Hellespontine 
cities  were  ripe  for  revolt,  and  hoped  for  hearty  aid  from  Pharna- 
bazus,  the  Persian  satrap  of  Northern  Asia  Minor,  who  had  proved 
himself  a  zealous  and  trustworthy  ally  of  Sparta.  The  Spartans 
had  already  been  provided  with  a  base  of  operations  on  the  Helles- 
pont, for  two  small  expeditions  had  been  sent  thither  a  few  months 
before,  and  had  brought  about  the  rebellion  of  Abydos  and  Byzan- 
tium.    Accordingly  Mindarus,  steering  a  westward  course  out  into 

363 


364  GREECE 

411    B.C. 

the  Aegean,  so  as  to  escape  the  notice  of  the  Athenian  fleet  at 
Samos,  started  with  seventy-three  ships  for  the  Hellespont.  He 
intended  to  reach  the  straits,  seize  all  the  cities  on  their  shores,  and 
block  the  way  for  the  corn-ships  from  the  Enxine,  that  brought  to 
Athens  the  supplies  of  food  on  which  her  inhabitants  were  mainly 
supported.  A  storm  delayed  the  Spartan,  and  when  he  reached 
the  Hellespont  the  Athenians  from  Samos  were  close  on  his  heels. 
The  generals  Thrasybulus  and  Thrasyllus  had  put  to  sea  with 
every  ship  they  could  muster,  and  by  calling  in  detachments  from 
all  sides  had  got  together  a  fleet  nearly  as  strong  as  that  of  Min- 
darus.  They  brought  him  to  action  in  the  narrow  waters  between 
Sestos  and  Abydos,  at  the  promontory  of  Cynossema,  hard  by  the 
tomb  and  chapel  of  the  legendary  Trojan  queen  Hecuba.  After 
a  hard  fight  Mindarus  was  beaten,  and  his  fleet  compelled  to  run 
ashore  under  the  walls  of  Abydos,  leaving  twenty-one  vessels  in 
the  hands  of  Thrasyllus.  But  though  checked,  the  Spartan  was 
not  crushed;  he  was  encouraged  by  the  revolt  of  several  cities  on 
the  Propontis,  and  he  hoped  to  renew  the  struggle  by  the  aid  of 
Agesandridas's  fleet  from  Euboea,  now  hastily  summoned  to  his  aid, 
and  of  some  reinforcements  from  Rhodes  which  were  on  their 
way  to  him.  The  squadron  from  Euboea  was  caught  in  a  storm  off 
Mount  Athos.  and  almost  entirely  destroyed ;  but  the  force  from 
the  south  reached  the  Hellespont,  though  pursued  by  Alcibiades, 
who  had  collected  a  small  fleet  at  Cos  and  Samos.  Seeing  his  rein- 
forcements at  hand,  Mindarus  put  out  from  Abydos  to  join  them, 
A  battle  ensued,  which  remained  undecided  till  Alcibiades  was  seen 
coming  up  in  the  distance.  Then  the  Peloponnesians  turned  tail 
and  once  more  sought  refuge  by  running  ashore;  there  they  were 
joined  by  a  Persian  force  under  Pharnabazus,  who  did  his  best  to 
save  the  stranded  ships.  But  the  Athenians  persisted,  and  towed  off 
in  triumph  thirty  galleys,  a  full  third  of  the  fleet  of  Mindarus. 
Believing  that  the  Spartan  was  now  thoroughly  disabled,  Thra- 
syllus and  Alcibiades  dispersed  their  fleet  and  went  into  winter 
quarters.  Alcibiades  took  the  opportunity  to  pay  a  visit  to  his 
old  friend  Tissaphernes ;  but  the  satrap  had  lately  received  a  rebuke 
from  Susa  on  account  of  his  double-dealing  policy,  and  was  in  no 
mood  to  welcome  the  Athenian.  Instead  of  meeting  his  whilom 
councilor  with  effusion,  he  cast  him  into  chains  and  sent  him  to 
Sardis,  But  a  month  later  Alcibiades  found  means  to  escape  from 
the  citadel,  rode  off  in  safety  to  the  coast,  and  rejoined  the  fleet. 


SURRENDER    OF     ATHENS  365 

410   B.C. 

When  the  spring  of  410  b.c.  came  round,  Mindarus,  having 
been  reinforced,  again  put  to  sea  with  sixty  sail.  But  the  Athenians 
had  already  begun  to  concentrate  for  his  destruction.  As  he  lay 
opposite  Cyzicus,  the  Athenian  fleet  of  eighty-six  vessels  stole  up, 
in  a  day  of  storm  and  rain,  which  allowed  them  to  come  upon  him 
unawares.  While  the  Athenian  center  under  Alcibiades  kept 
Mindarus  employed,  the  wings  under  Tharsybiilus  and  Theramenes 
slipped  round  the  Spartan  to  cut  him  off  from  the  shore.  Seeing 
this  maneuver  Mindarus  turned  and  forced  his  way  through  to 
the  land,  where  the  army  of  Pharnabazus  was  coming  to  his 
succor.  But  the  Athenians  pressed  hard  on  him  and  cut  off  many 
vessels;  and  when  he  ran  the  remnant  ashore,  Alcibiades  dis- 
embarked and  engaged  him  in  a  land  fight.  After  a  desperate 
struggle  the  Peloponnesians  and  Persians  were  completely  routed; 
Mindarus  fell,  and  every  single  ship  in  his  fleet  was  taken  or  sunk, 
except  the  few  Syracusan  vessels,  and  these  were  burned  by  their 
own  crews  to  prevent  their  capture.  The  victory  seemed  decisive 
of  the  fate  of  Asia  Minor.  In  its  incidents  and  its  'completeness 
alike  it  recalled  to  Athenian  minds  Cimon's  triumph  at  the  Eury- 
medon  fifty-six  years  before.  All  the  misdeeds  of  Alcibiades  were 
forgiven  and  forgotten,  now  that  he  had  won  for  Athens  the 
most  complete  victory  which  had  graced  her  arms  in  the  whole 
war. 

For  the  first  time  since  the  news  of  the  Syracusan  disaster  had 
reached  them,  the  Athenians  were  able  to  breathe  freely,  and  to  look 
beyond  the  needs  of  the  moment.  The  enemy's  main  armament  had 
been  destroyed;  the  Hellespont  was  reopened;  and  it  seemed  to 
require  only  due  expenditure  of  time  to  reduce,  one  after  another, 
the  revolted  cities  of  Asia.  K  anything  could  have  been  wanting 
to  restore  the  confidence  of  Athens,  it  was  supplied  by  a  dispatch 
from  Hippocrates,  the  Spartan  who  had  been  second  in  command 
to  Mindarus,  which  was  intercepted  on  its  way  to  the  ephors. 
"  The  ships  are  gone,"  ran  the  laconic  document ;  "  Mindarus  is 
slain;  the  men  are  starving;  we  know  not  what  to  do."  The  mob 
of  shipless  seamen  under  Hippocrates  were  thrown  on  the  charity 
of  Pharnabazus,  whose  subsidies  alone  stood  between  them  and 
disbandment  or  destruction. 

It  is  not  surprising  to  learn  that,  on  the  receipt  of  the  news  of 
the  battle  of  Cyzicus  the  Lacedaemonians  thought  for  a  moment  of 
peace.     Endius,  the  Spartan  friend  of  Alcibiades,  came  to  Athens 


366  GREECE 

410-408   B.C. 

to  sound  the  mind  of  the  Ecclesia.  and  to  lay  before  it  proposals 
for  a  general  cessation  of  hostilities.  The  terms  offered  were,  as 
was  but  natural,  founded  on  the  actual  state  of  affairs.  Rhodes, 
Chios,  jMiletus,  the  Euboeans,  and  the  other  revolted  allies  of 
Athens,  were  to  retain  their  independence;  but  Sparta  was  ready 
to  evacuate  Decelea,  and  to  promise  to  leave  undisturbed  those 
members  of  the  Confederacy  of  Delos  who  still  clung  to  Athens. 
Endius  must  have  felt  sure  that  the  Athenians  would  be  glad  to 
get  rid  of  the  war  at  any  price.  They  had  been  living  for  three 
years  on  the  brink  of  destruction,  and  when  an  honorable  peace, 
involving  no  further  surrender  of  territory  or  prestige,  was  offered 
them,  might  have  been  expected  to  accept  it.  But  the  hopefulness 
and  light-hearted  confidence  of  the  Ecclesia  was  once  more  too 
strong.  Led  on  by  the  demagogue  Cleophon,  the  people  voted  that 
they  would  listen  to  no  terms  which  left  their  revolted  allies  in- 
dependent, and  Endius  was  accordingly  dismissed.  This  was  a  fatal 
mistake;  the  resources  of  Athens  had  run  so  low  that  she  should 
have  embraced  any  opportunity  of  peace;  her  success  was  but 
momentary,  and  the  next  turn  of  the  wheel  of  fortune  was  destined 
to  render  an  honorable  conclusion  of  the  war  impossible. 

But  for  the  moment  all  looked  well  for  Athens.  Pharnabazus, 
indeed,  strained  his  resources  to  the  utmost  in  the  endeavor  to 
maintain  the  great  body  of  Peloponnesian  seamen  who  had  been 
thrown  upon  his  hands,  and  set  to  work  at  once  to  provide  them 
with  ships.  But  they  were  far  from  any  friendly  arsenal — there 
was  none  nearer  than  Chios — shipwrights  were  few,  and  the  timber 
for  the  vessels  had  actually  to  be  felled  on  Mount  Ida  before  any 
further  measures  could  be  taken.  For  more  than  a  year  the 
Athenians  were  completely  free  from  any  trouble  at  sea,  and  had 
full  leisure  for  re-establishing  their  ancient  naval  dominion. 

Nothing,  however,  could  have  marked  more  strongly  the  utter 
exhaustion  of  Athens,  and  the  hopelessness  of  the  struggle  in 
which  she  was  engaged,  than  the  small  profit  she  was  able  to  draw 
from  the  victory  of  Cyzicus.  For  two  years  the  enemy  never  dared 
to  risk  a  naval  engagement ;  the  officers  whom  the  ephors  dispatched 
to  Asia  were  men  of  little  mark  or  ability ;  the  revolted  allies  were 
cowed  and  disheartened.  On  the  other  hand,  Alcibiades  and 
Thrasyllus  were  both  men  of  energy  and  decision,  and  their  troops 
were  flushed  with  a  splendid  victory.  Yet  all  that  was  accom- 
plished in  the  years  410-408  B.C.  was  the  reconquest  of  those  cities 


SURRENDER   OF     ATHENS  367 

410-408    B.C. 

on  the  Hellespont  and  Propontis  which  had  revolted  at  various  times 
during-  the  stay  of  Mindarus  in  those  parts.  Perinthus  and  Selym- 
bria  were  subdued  in  the  autumn  of  410  B.C.;  the  great  island  of 
Thasos  returned  to  its  allegiance  in  the  following-  winter;  in  409 
B.C.  Alcibiades  ravaged  the  whole  coast-land  of  the  satrapy  of 
Pharnabazus,  and  laid  siege  to  Chalcedon,  the  city  which  commands 
the  Asiatic  shore  of  the  Bosphorus.  Meanwhile  Thrasyllus  turned 
south  and  attacked  the  revolted  cities  of  Ionia ;  but  Colophon  was 
the  only  place  which  he  succeeded  in  recapturing,  and  in  front  of 
Ephesus  he  received  a  severe  repulse  from  the  Ephesians,  joined 
with  the  Persian  troops  of  Tissaphernes,  who  was  once  more  in- 
clining to  the  Spartan  alliance.  In  the  autumn  of  409  B.C.  Thrasyl- 
lus sailed  up  the  Hellespont  and  rejoined  Alcibiades;  their  united 
force  took  Chalcedon  in  the  spring  of  the  following  year,  and  six 
months  later  recovered  Byzantium,  after  a  long  siege  which  lasted 
till  the  inhabitants,  now  at  starvation  point,  threw  open  the  gates 
in  defiance  of  their  Spartan  governor.  Thus  the  Bosphorus,  Helles- 
pont, and  Propontis  were  at  last  completely  freed  from  the  enemy, 
and  the  corn-ships  of  Athens  came  through  once  more  from  the 
Euxine  without  having  to  dread  any  disturbance  on  their  voyage. 
After  the  fall  of  Byzantium,  Pharnabazus,  who  had  been  bearing 
the  whole  financial  strain  of  the  war  for  more  than  two  years,  felt 
himself  so  reduced  that  he  offered  to  retire  from  the  Spartan 
alliance  and  to  make  peace  with  Athens.  This  was  the  most 
promising  symptom  v^^hich  the  war  had  shown  of  late,  but  it  was 
destined  to  have  no  ultimate  effect. 

Further  than  this  the  successes  of  Alcibiades  did  not  go.  When 
the  Hellespont  was  at  last  clear,  he  made  no  attempt  against  the 
Ionian  cities,  feeling  apparently  that  the  reduction  of  Chios  or 
Miletus  was  hopeless.  Instead  of  sailing  south,  he  turned  home- 
wards, and  led  his  fleet  back  to  the  Peiraeus.  It  was  with  some 
hesitation  that  he  ventured  to  approach  his  native  city ;  even  though 
he  had  been  elected  general  in  his  absence,  and,  though  he  was 
conscious  of  having  two  years  of  good  service  behind  him,  he  still 
dreaded  the  wrath  of  the  democracy,  and  remembered  the  curses 
which  had  been  heaped  upon  him,  and  the  sentences  which  were 
still  hanging  over  his  head.  His  reception,  however,  was  all  that 
he  could  have  ventured  to  hope.  His  friends  and  relations 
thronged  down  to  the  harbor  to  welcome  him,  and  escorted  him 
in  triumph  to  the  city.     The  senate  and  the  Ecclesia  gave  him  a 


368  GREECE 

410-108    B.C. 

solemn  hearing,  in  which  he  vindicated  himself  from  the  old  charge 
of  sacrilege,  and  swore  that  he  was  innocent  of  all  that  had  been 
laid  to  his  account.  His  sentence  was  thereupon  revoked,  and  all 
his  civic  rights  restored.  Not  only  was  his  term  of  office  as 
general  renewed,  but  he  was  entrusted  with  sole  and  absolute  con- 
trol over  a  considerable  armament — one  hundred  ships  and  fifteen 
hundred  hoplites — and  authorized  to  use  it  as  he  thought  best. 
He  first  employed  it  to  escort  the  procession  which  annually  went 
from  Athens  to  Eleusis  for  the  celebration  of  the  Eleusinian  mys- 
teries. Ever  since  the  Spartans  had  seized  Decelea,  the  sacred 
cortege  had  been  compelled  to  proceed  to  Eleusis  by  sea ;  but  under 
the  protection  of  Alcibiades's  troops  the  procession  once  more 
marched  with  its  ancient  pomp  along  the  line  of  the  Sacred 
Way. 

After  making  a  fruitless  attempt  to  recover  the  island  of 
Andros,  which  had  revolted  to  Sparta  in  spite  of  her  late  mis- 
fortunes, Alcibiades  returned  to  Asia,  where  he  found  that  an 
important  change  in  the  spirit  of  affairs  had  lately  set  in,  and  that 
the  star  of  Athens  was  once  more  on  the  wane.  Two  causes  co- 
operated for  this  end.  The  first  was  the  dispatch  from  Sparta  of  a 
really  able  general  to  take  charge  of  the  war  in  Ionia.  Lysander, 
the  son  of  Aristoclitus,  was  the  most  remarkable  man  that  Sparta 
had  produced  for  a  century.  His  family  was  impoverished ;  his 
father  was  one  of  those  citizens  who  had  forfeited  from  poverty 
part  of  their  civic  rights,  and  his  youth  had  been  passed  in  obscurity. 
But  by  sheer  energy  and  force  of  character  he  had  made  his  way  to 
the  front,  and  had  at  last  been  appointed  to  the  office  of  nauarchiis, 
or  high  admiral.  Lysander  was  not  inferior  in  courage  or  ability 
to  Brasidas,  the  only  other  Spartan  of  genius  who  appeared  during 
the  war.  But  his  character  was  quite  different  from  that  of  the 
hero  of  Amphipolis,  His  ambition  was  wholly  personal ;  he  had 
no  sympathy  for  Hellenic  liberties,  or  care  for  the  interests  of  his 
allies.  If  he  served  Sparta  well,  it  was  only  because  the  growth 
of  her  power  favored  his  own  aggrandizement.  His  means  were 
as  unscrupulous  as  his  ends  were  selfish,  and  treachery  and  cruelty 
were  no  less  prominent  in  his  actions  than  acuteness  and 
decision. 

Lysander  would  have  been  under  any  circumstances  a  danger- 
ous foe  to  Athens,  but  at  the  moment  at  which  he  appeared  in  Ionia 
another    factor   was   introduced   into   the   politics   of   Asia    Minor 


SURRENDER    OF     ATHENS  369 

408-407   B.C. 

which  made  him  doubly  formidable.  The  court  of  Susa,  resenting 
the  endless  double-dealing  of  Tissaphernes,  had  at  last  superseded 
that  satrap,  and  sent  down  in  his  stead  Cyrus,  the  second  son  of 
the  reigning  king,  Darius  II.  The  young  prince  was  not  only 
entrusted  with  the  satrapy  of  Lydia,  but  given  a  general  control 
over  all  the  neighboring  governors.  Cyrus,  from  his  first  arrival, 
showed  himself  ruled  by  one  desire — the  wish  to  pay  off  on  Athens 
all  the  trouble  she  had  caused  to  his  ancestors  since  the  days  of 
Marathon  and  Salamis.  He  at  once  put  a  stop  to  Pharnabazus's 
negotiations  with  Athens,  and  summoned  the  Spartan  commander- 
in-chief  to  Sardis.  When  Lysander  arrived  Cyrus  declared  to  him 
that  he  had  five  hundred  talents  ready  to  assist  in  equipping  a 
new  fleet,  and  that,  if  these  were  not  enough,  he  would  provide 
more  out  of  his  own  private  means,  "  even  though  he  were  driven 
to  coin  into  darics  the  golden  throne  on  which  he  sat."  It  was  at 
first  settled  that  he  should  subsidize  the  Peloponnesian  fleet  to  the 
extent  of  paying  three  obols  a  day  to  each  seaman,  but  soon  after, 
at  the  request  of  Lysander,  to  whom  he  had  taken  a  great  personal 
liking,  he  raised  the  sum  to  four  obols,  an  allowance  greater  than 
the  Athenians  were  then  able  to  pay  their  men. 

Small  reinforcements  had  gradually  been  crossing  the  Aegean 
during  the  last  two  years — the  most  considerable  of  them  a  squad- 
ron of  twenty-five  Syracusan  vessels — so  that  Lysander  was  ere 
long  at  the  head  of  ninety  galleys,  which  he  collected  at  Ephesus. 
Alcibiades,  with  the  hundred  vessels  which  the  Athenians  had  given 
him,  took  his  post  at  Notium,  to  prevent  the  Spartan  from  putting 
to  sea.  Presently,  however,  Alcibiades  was  called  away  to  Phocaea, 
and  sailed  off,  leaving  his  fleet  in  charge  of  Antiochus,  a  satellite 
and  boon-companion  of  his  own,  whom  he  placed  over  the  heads  of 
all  the  officers  of  the  fleet,  though  he  had  only  been  serving  as 
master  on  board  the  flag-ship,  and  had  never  had  any  experience 
in  command.  Alcibiades  bade  his  follower  avoid  fighting;  but 
the  moment  he  was  gone  Antiochus  sailed,  in  mere  bravado,  into 
the  harbor  of  Ephesus,  and  rowed  past  the  Spartan  fleet,  challeng- 
ing Lysander  to  come  forth  and  meet  him.  A  few  vessels  put 
out  at  once  to  chase  the  presumptuous  intruder;  then,  seeing  the 
enemy  on  the  move,  some  Athenian  ships  from  Notium  came  to 
the  rescue  of  their  commander.  Gradually  the  whole  of  both  fleets 
were  drawn  into  an  engagement,  in  which  Lysander  won  an  easy 
victory  over  the  ill-managed  Athenian  squadron.     Antiochus  was 


370  GREECE 

407    B.C. 

slain,  and  fifteen  of  his  galleys  sunk  or  taken ;  the  rest  retired  to 
Samos.  Here  they  were  rejoined  by  Alcibiades,  who  had  been 
spending  his  time  in  a  high-handed  and  ill-judged  attempt  to  levy 
extra  contributions  from  the  cities  of  Aeolis.  Lysander  refused  a 
second  battle,  and  resumed  his  old  position  at  Ephesus,  so  that 
nothing  had  really  been  lost  by  the  recklessness  of  Antiochus. 
Nevertheless  there  was  such  a  strong  feeling  against  Alcibiades 
roused  at  Athens,  on  account  of  his  criminal  negligence  in  entrust- 
ing his  boon-companion  with  the  command  of  the  fleet,  and  of  his 
unwise  exactions  in  Aeolis,  that  his  enemies  succeeded  in  getting 
him  deposed  by  a  vote  of  the  Ecclesia,  which  once  more  placed  the 
conduct  of  the  war  in  the  hands  of  the  ten  strategi.  Alcibiades 
sailed  off  to  the  Thracian  Chersonese,  where  he  was  the  owner  of 
a  large  domain  and  castle,  and  spent  the  remaining  years  of  the 
war  in  retirement. 

Among  the  generals  who  superseded  Alcibiades,  the  most 
prominent  men  were  Thrasyllus,  long  noted  as  a  democratic  leader ; 
Pericles,  the  son  and  namesake  of  the  great  statesman,  and  an 
officer  named  Conon,  who  now  for  the  first  time  appears  in  high 
command.  It  was  Conon,  however,  who  took  charge  of  the  fleet  at 
Samos,  which  had  lately  been  under  the  orders  of  Alcibiades. 

About  the  same  time  that  the  change  in  the  Athenian  com- 
manders took  place,  the  Spartan  fleet  also  received  a  new  admiral. 
Lysander's  year  of  office  had  run  out,  and  the  ephors  adhering  to 
the  rule  that  no  one  should  be  made  nauarchus  twice,  replaced  their 
able  servant  by  an  officer  named  Callicratidas.  The  system  of  con- 
stant change  was  evil,  but  in  this  particular  case  led  to  no  great 
harm,  as  Callicratidas  w^as  an  energetic  and  efficient  commander. 
But  Lysander,  piqued  at  his  deposition,  made  his  successor's  task  as 
hard  as  he  could  contrive,  by  prejudicing  the  mind  of  Cyrus  against 
him,  and  by  restoring  to  the  Persian's  treasury  all  that  remained 
unspent  of  the  money  which  had  been  lent  him  for  the  pay  and 
equipment  of  the  Peloponnesian  fleet.  Thus  Callicratidas  found 
on  his  arrival  the  military  chest  empty,  and  the  seamen  clamoring 
for  their  pay.  When  he  went  up  to  Sareli.s  to  ask  Cyrus  for  a 
subsidy,  he  was  kept  so  long  waiting,  without  even  obtaining  an 
audience,  that  he  had  to  depart,  "  cursing  the  necessities  of  the 
Greeks,  which  compelled  them  to  fawn  on  barbarians  for  money, 
and  declaring  that  if  he  ever  got  home  he  would  do  his  best  to 
reconcile  Athens  and  Sparta."  ^  However,  by  persuading  the 
^  Xenophon,  Hellen,  i.  6,  §  6. 


SURRENDER     OF     ATHENS  371 

406    B.C. 

Cliians  and  Milesians  to  grant  him  a  small  contribution,  Callicrat- 
idas  was  able  to  pay  his  men  some  of  their  arrears  and  to  get 
his  fleet  to  sea.  The  Athenians  were  at  the  moment  very  scat- 
tered ;  some  lay  at  Samos,  while  the  main  body,  under  Conon,  were 
engaged  in  harrying  the  coasts  of  the  revolted  states  of  Aeolis. 
Callicratidas,  after  gathering  in  all  the  scattered  divisions  of  the 
Spartan  fleet,  had  no  less  than  a  hundred  and  seventy  galleys 
with  him — the  largest  force  that  had  yet  been  seen  during  the  war. 
He  sailed  north  and  landed  on  Lesbos,  where  he  took  the  town  of 
Methymna  by  storm.  There  his  moderation  was  shown  by  his 
refusal  to  sell  the  Methymnaeans  and  their  Athenian  garrison 
into  slavery,  as  his  allies  urged  him.  Next  day  Conon,  with 
seventy  Athenian  ships,  came  in  sight;  underrating  the  Spartan 
fleet,  he  ran  right  into  the  jaws  of  danger,  and  only  turned  to 
fly  when  it  was  too  late,  after  his  retreat  on  Samos  had  been 
cut  off.  He  was  compelled  to  take  shelter  in  the  harbor  of  Mity- 
lene,  after  a  running  fight,  in  which  he  lost  nearly  half  his  ships, 
and  only  saved  the  remainder  by  hauling  them  ashore  under  the 
ramparts  of  the  town.  Callicratidas  immediately  blockaded  the 
place  by  sea  and  land,  and  counted  on  taking  it  with  no  great 
difficulty,  for  the  Athenian  seamen  were  certain  to  exhaust  in  a 
few  weeks  the  food  of  a  town  which  had  not  been  prepared  to 
stand  a  siege. 

Conon  succeeded  in  sending  out  a  swift  vessel,  which  ran  the 
blockade,  and  arrived  at  Athens  with  the  tidings  of  his  danger. 
But  it  seemed  unlikely  that  he  could  be  saved,  for  there  was  no 
Athenian  fleet  in  existence  fit  to  cope  with  the  great  armament  of 
Callicratidas.  A  few  dozen  ships  were  lying  at  Samos,  but  there 
was  no  other  considerable  squadron  at  sea.  However,  the  Athe- 
nians, with  their  usual  vigor  and  perseverance,  resolved  to  make  an 
attempt  to  rescue  their  general.  The  arsenal  of  the  Peiraeus  hap- 
pened at  the  moment  to  be  full  of  vessels  undergoing  repair,  or  far 
advanced  in  construction ;  it  was  resolved  to  send  out  everything 
that  was  in  any  way  seaworthy,  and  to  give  battle  to  Callicratidas. 
The  Ecclesia  voted  that  every  man  of  full  age,  slave  or  freeman, 
should  go  on  board ;  even  the  knights,  for  the  first  time  on  record, 
were  sent  to  sea.  In  less  than  thirty  days  there  were  a  hundred 
and  ten  vessels  manned,  though  the  crews  were  raw  and  the  equip- 
ment inadequate.  Eight  of  the  ten  strategi  took  the  command, 
and  the  fleet  pushed  across  the  Aegean  to  Samos,  where  it  picked 


372  GREECE 

406  B.C. 

Up  nearly  fifty  galleys  more,  most  of  them  belonging  to  Samos  and 
the  other  loyal  states  of  Ionia.  On  hearing  that  the  Athenians 
had  reached  Asia,  Callicratidas  resolved  to  attempt  to  maintain  the 
blockade  of  Mitylene,  and  at  the  same  time  to  meet  the  enemy  in 
battle.  Leaving  his  second-in-command,  Eteonicus,  with  fifty 
ships,  to  keep  Conon  in  check,  he  took  post  with  one  hundred  and 
twenty  off  the  southernmost  cape  of  Lesbos.  The  same  night  the 
Athenian  fleet  came  in  view,  sailing  northward  along  the  main- 
land. Next  day  the  battle  took  place  off  the  Arginusae,  a  cluster 
of  small  islands  which  lie  south  from  Lesbos.  The  Athenian 
generals  were  forced,  by  the  inexperience  of  their  crews,  to  adopt 
the  tactics  which  had  once  been  peculiar  to  their  enemies — they 
drew  up  their  fleet  in  a  dense  line  without  intervals,  and  endeavored 
to  come  to  close  quarters  at  once  and  to  prevent  the  enemy  from 
maneuvering.  Callicratidas,  on  the  other  hand,  came  on  with  his 
ships  in  open  order,  resolved  to  turn  the  flanks  of  the  Athenians 
or  to  break  their  line.  When  the  superior  numbers  of  the  enemy 
became  visible,  the  master  of  his  galley  besought  him  to  turn  back ; 
but  Callicratidas,  buoyed  up  by  confidence  in  his  own  bravery  and 
in  the  skill  of  his  seamen,  merely  replied  that  "  flight  was  disgrace- 
ful, and  that  if  he  fell  Sparta  would  be  none  the  worse  for  his 
death." 

The  fleets  were  soon  locked  in  close  combat,  and  after  a  w^hile 
the  numerical  superiority  of  the  Athenians  began  to  tell.  Calli- 
cratidas was  thrown  into  the  sea  by  the  shock  of  a  hostile  galley, 
as  he  stood  by  his  prow  preparing  to  board,  and  was  seen  no 
more.  No  less  than  seventy  Peloponnesian  ships  were  destroyed 
or  taken ;  the  fight  had  been  at  close  quarters,  and  when  the  day 
went  against  them  they  were  unable  to  get  away :  only  fifty  escaped 
to  Chios.  No  more  than  fifteen  Athenian  vessels  had  been 
sunk,  but  a  dozen  more  lay  waterlogged,  and  requiring  prompt 
assistance. 

There  would  seem  to  have  been  great  confusion  in  the  Athe- 
nian fleet  after  the  battle  was  won.  The  generals  resolved  to  push 
on  at  once  to  Mitylene,  and  to  catch  Eteonicus  and  his  squadron 
before  he  could  escape  to  sea.  But  after  they  had  started  a  gale 
sprang  up,  and  induced  them  to  put  back  and  haul  their  fleet 
ashore  for  the  night.  One  consequence  of  this  indecision  was  that 
Eteonicus  was  able  to  slip  off  unharmed  to  Chios.  Another  was 
that   the   dozen  Athenian  ships   which   had  been   disabled   in   the 


SURRENDER    OF     ATHENS  373 

406   B.C. 

battle  went  down  with  all  their  crews,  without  having  received  any 
succor.2 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  the  Athenians  would  have 
forgotten  all  the  shortcomings  of  their  generals  in  the  moment  of 
victory.  Their  hastily  equipped  vessels  had  won  the  day,  relieved 
Mitylene,  and  saved  Conon.  The  conquerors  of  Arginusae  ex- 
pected nothing  but  praise  and  glory.  But  the  point  which  was 
seized  by  public  opinion  at  Athens,  was  that,  by  gross  neglect  on 
the  part  of  someone  or  other,  a  dozen  ships,  manned  by  hundreds 
of  citizens,  had  been  suffered  to  perish  unaided  after  the  battle. 
The  demagogues  Archedemus  and  Timocrates  brought  this  accusa- 
tion against  the  generals  with  such  effect  that  they  were  immedi- 
ately deposed  from  office.  Six  of  them,  among  whom  were 
Thrasyllus  and  Pericles,  returned  to  Athens  to  justify  themselves 
before  the  people.  But  when  they  appeared,  a  general  clamor  was 
raised  against  them,  and  Theramenes — ^the  converted  oligarch  who 
had  played  such  a  prominent  part  in  the  deposition  of  the  Four 
Hundred — proposed  that  they  should  be  brought  to  trial  for  their 
criminal  negligence  in  failing  to  rescue  their  fellow-citizens.  To 
this  the  generals  replied  that  the  storm  had  been  too  much  for  them, 
but  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  had  commissioned  Theramenes 
himself,  and  ThrasybCilus,  with  ten  ships,  to  see  to  the  wrecks. 
Theramenes  and  the  other  persons  named  utterly  denied  having 
received  any  such  orders,  and  it  seems  likely  that  this  part  of  the 
generals'  defense  was  an  afterthought ;  in  their  first  dispatches  they 
laid  the  blame  on  the  storm  alone.  But  the  storm  cannot  have  been 
very  violent,  since  it  did  not  prevent  Eteonlcus  and  his  Spartan 
ships  from  putting  to  sea;  and  it  was  probably  the  disorder  and 
confusion  into  which  the  raw^  and  ill-equipped  fleet  had  fallen  after 
a  day's  hard  fighting  that  really  caused  the  loss  of  the  disabled 
galleys. 

After  the  debate  as  to  the  responsibility  of  the  generals  had 
proceeded  to  great  length,  the  Ecclesia  was  adjourned.  The  next 
morning  happened  to  be  the  festival  of  the  Apaturia,  a  day  dedi- 
cated to  solemn  family  gatherings.  The  number  of  persons  who 
appeared  in  black  at  these  meetings,  as  having  lost  relatives  in  the 

2  For  an  occurrence  in  modern  history  somewhat  similar  to  the  events  at 
Arginusae,  compare  the  storm  on  the  night  after  Trafalgar,  which  sent  so  many 
ships  to  the  bottom.  But  the  English  Government  did  not  court-martial  Colling- 
wood  for  neglecting  to  obey  Nelson's  dying  words,  and  moor  his  tiect. 


374  GREECE 

406   B.C. 

late  battle,  was  so  great  that  the  whole  city  was  shocked  and  excited, 
and  the  feeling  against  the  generals  rose  to  boiling  point.  When 
the  Ecclesia  reassembled,  a  senator  named  Callixenus  brought  for- 
ward a  decree  which  was  not  only  unjust,  but  entirely  unconsti- 
tutional. It  proposed  that,  "  as  both  the  accusers  and  the  generals 
had  been  heard  at  length,  the  people  should  at  once  proceed  to 
vote,  and  that  if  the  generals  were  convicted  the  penalty  should  be 
death."  This  decree  not  only  proposed  to  cut  short  the  defense  of 
the  generals,  but  violated  one  of  the  best-known  enactments  in  the 
Athenian  constitution,^  which  provided  that  accused  persons  should 
be  indicted  and  sentenced  one  by  one,  and  not  condemned  or 
acquitted  by  a  verdict  dealing  with  several  persons  simultaneously. 
The  decree  of  Callixenus  met  with  much  opposition ;  several  citizens 
protested  against  its  illegality,  and  threatened  to  prosecute  its 
author  for  his  open  disregard  of  the  constitution.  But  the  mob 
was  so  violent,  and  the  threats  used  against  the  opponents  of  the 
bill  so  terrifying,  that  they  finally  gave  way.  Some  of  the  Pryta- 
neis  refused  to  put  the  question  to  the  vote,  and  were  only  coerced 
by  a  menace  which  Callixenus  made,  that  if  they  persevered  they 
should  be  included  in  the  generals'  sentence.  Even  then  the  phi- 
losopher Socrates,  who  happened  to  be  serving  as  one  of  the 
Prytaneis,  refused  to  assent  to  the  proposal.  But  his  protest  was 
disregarded;  the  question  was  put,  and  the  unfortunate  generals 
condemned  to  instant  execution.  Thus  perished,  by  a  most  unjust 
and  cruel  perversion  of  justice,  Pericles  the  son  of  Pericles,  Thrasyl- 
lus,  the  victor  of  Cyzicus,  and  four  more  officers,  Leon,  Diomedon, 
Erasinades,  and  Aristocrates,  No  long  time  after  the  people  re- 
pented of  their  madness,  and  ordered  the  impeachment  of  Callix- 
enus and  several  of  his  supporters.  However,  the  author  of  the 
infamous  decree  escaped  without  a  trial,  owing  to  the  disasters 
which  fell  upon  Athens  at  the  time ;  but  we  learn  with  satisfaction 
that  he  remained  an  object  of  public  execration,  and  finally  died 
of  hunger  in  the  street. 

After  the  death  of  Callicratidas  the  Spartan  Government  made 
another  attempt  to  come  to  terms  with  Athens,  offering  once  more 
peace  on  the  basis  of  "  uti  possidetis/'  The  proposal  was  again 
defeated  by  Cleophon,  who  "  came  into  the  Ecclesia  drunk  and  with 
armor  on,  swearing  that  he  would  not  allow  it,  unless  the  Spartans 
gave  up  all  their  gains."  So  the  ephors  had  to  continue  the  war, 
'  Known  from  its  author's  name  as  the  Psephism  of  Canonus. 


SURRENDER    OF     ATHENS  375 

405  B.C. 

and  replace  Lysander  in  command ;  but  in  order  to  preserve  the 
rule  that  no  one  should  be  nauarchus  twice,  he  was  given,  as  a 
nominal  superior,  an  officer  named  Aracus  (405  B.C.). 

Lysander  joined  to  the  wrecks  of  the  fleet  of  Callicratidas  all 
the  vessels  he  could  collect  from  the  Asiatic  allies  of  Sparta.  He 
also  obtained  large  supplies  of  money  from  Cyrus,  who  threw  open 
his  treasury  the  moment  that  his  friend  was  restored  to  command. 
So  far  did  the  Persian  prince's  enthusiasm  for  the  Spartan  cause 
lead  him,  that  when  he  was  summoned  up  for  a  time  to  Media,  to 
visit  his  sick  father,  he  made  over  the  administration  of  the  reve- 
nues of  his  satrapy  to  Lysander,  and  bade  him  take  all  that  he 
needed.  With  the  funds  obtained  from  this  source  many  scores  of 
new  ships  were  built  at  Antandrus.  Still  the  Spartan  fleet  was  not 
yet  equal  in  numbers  to  that  which  Conon,  and  the  other  officers 
who  had  replaced  the  victims  of  Callixenus,  could  put  into  line  of 
battle.  Accordingly  the  Spartan  did  not  at  once  risk  an  engage- 
ment, but  resolved  to  carry  out  the  plan  which  Mindarus  had  at- 
tempted in  410  B.C.,  and  to  block  the  Hellespont  against  the 
Athenian  corn-ships.  He  slipped  northward,  and  falling  on  the 
rich  town  of  Lampsacus,  on  the  Asiatic  side  of  the  strait,  took  it 
by  storm,  and  made  it  the  base  of  his  operations.  The  Athenians 
soon  got  the  news.  Conon  and  his  colleagues  called  in  every  galley 
they  could  muster,  and  appeared  off  Lampsacus  with  a  fleet  of  no 
less  than  a  hundred  and  eighty  vessels.  For  four  days  they  offered 
Lysander  battle,  but  the  Spartan  kept  his  ships-  under  the  shelter 
of  the  walls  of  Lampsacus,  and  refused  to  put  out  to  meet  them. 
Accordingly  the  Athenian  generals  established  themselves  just 
opposite  to  him,  on  the  shore  of  the  Thracian  Chersonese,  and 
waited  for  him  to  make  some  further  move. 

The  Athenian  vessels  were  moored  off  a  barren  and  uninhabited 
beach,  at  a  spot  called  Aegospotami;  the  nearest  town  to  it  was 
Sestos,  two  miles  away,  from  which  all  the  supplies  for  the  fleet 
had  to  be  procured.  When  Lysander  kept  quiet  day  after  day,  the 
Athenian  commanders  grew  careless,  and  suffered  their  men  to 
disembark  in  the  afternoon  and  to  disperse  to  Sestos  and  other 
neighboring  places,  in  search  of  provisions.  Alcibiades,  whose 
castle  lay  a  few  miles  away,  marked  this  dangerous  negligence, 
and  came  down  to  warn  the  generals,  and  to  recommend  them  to 
remove  to  Sestos,  a  position  almost  as  convenient  for  observing 
Lysander   as   was   Aegospotami.     But   the   generals  Tydeus   and 


376  GREECE 

405   B.C. 

IMenander  replied  that  they  commanded  the  fleet  and  not  he,  and 
that  his  presence  was  not  wanted.     Accordingly  he  departed. 

The  very  next  day  Lysander,  waiting  till  the  afternoon  was  far 
spent,  and  the  Athenian  seamen  scattered  all  over  the  Chersonese, 
suddenly  put  out  from  Lampsacus  and  rowed  at  full  speed  across 
the  strait.  When  his  approach  was  observed,  the  Athenians  began 
to  rush  on  board ;  but  long  before  they  were  ready  Lysander  was 
upon  them.  Some  vessels  had  two  banks  of  oars  manned,  some 
one,  some  were  still  moored,  when  the  Peloponnesian  fleet  ran  in 
among  them.  There  was  practically  no  fighting;  Conon,  with 
the  few  Athenian  ships  that  were  ready  for  sea,  fled  southward. 
The  rest  were  taken  with  hardly  any  resistance,  though  the  greater 
part  of  the  crews  escaped  ashore.  A  hundred  and  seventy  vessels 
fell  into  Lysander's  hands,  with  more  than  four  thousand  prisoners, 
including  three  or  four  of  the  Athenian  admirals.  Lysander  had 
the  whole  body  of  prisoners  massacred  on  the  day  after  the  battle, 
alleging  in  excuse  the  cruelty  with  which  some  captured  Corinthian 
seamen  had  been  treated  a  little  while  before. 

Conon,  fearing,  with  good  reason,  the  wrath  of  his  country- 
men, fled  with  eight  vessels  to  Euagoras,  King  of  Salamis  in 
Cyprus,  with  whom  he  took  service.  But  he  sent  home  the  Paralus, 
one  of  the  state  galleys  which  had  escaped  in  his  company,  to  bear 
the  tidings  to  Athens. 

The  fatal  news  arrived  at  the  Peiraeus  as  evening  fell.  "  The 
noise  of  wailing,"  wrote  Xenophon,  who  was  probably  in  Athens 
at  the  time,  "  spread  all  up  the  Long  Walls  into  the  city,  as  one 
passed  on  the  tidings  to  another;  that  night  no  one  slept,  for  not 
only  were  they  lamenting  for  their  dead,  but  they  were  thinking 
of  what  they  themselves  had  done  to  the  Melians  and  the  Scionaeans 
and  the  Aeginetans,  and  many  others  of  the  Greeks,  and  reflecting 
that  they  must  now  suffer  the  same  fate." 

The  situation  of  Athens  was  perfectly  desperate.  Her  sole 
fleet  was  destroyed,  her  arsenals  were  stripped  bare,  her  corn- 
supply  was  cut  off.  Lysander  did  not  delay  a  moment  after  the 
battle,  but  sailed  at  once  to  Byzantium  and  Chalcedon,  which  sur- 
rendered at  the  first  summons.  After  arranging  for  the  closing  of 
the  Bosphorus  against  Athenian  vessels,  he  went  against  Mitylene 
in  person,  while  he  sent  Eteonicus  to  Thasos  and  the  other  towns 
which  adhered  to  Athens  in  the  direction  of  Thrace.  Nowhere 
was  any  resistance  made.     Each  city,  when  the  Spartans  appeared. 


SURRENDER    OF    ATHENS  377 

404  B.C. 

threw  open  its  gates  and  gave  up  its  Athenian  garrison  as  prisoners. 
Within  a  few  w-eeks  after  Aegospotami,  Samos  was  the  only  place 
which  still  held  out  for  Athens.  The  Samian  democracy,  having 
massacred  so  many  of  their  Philo-Spartan  fellow-citizens,  were 
prevented  from  surrendering  by  dread  of  the  revenge  which  they 
knew  would  follow. 

When  Asia  Minor  was  cleared  of  Athenian  garrisons,  Lysan- 
der  sailed  with  two  hundred  ships  into  the  Gulf  of  Aegina,  and 
established  the  blockade  of  Peiraeus.  Simultaneously  King  Agis 
came  down  from  Decelea  with  the  full  levy  of  Peloponnesus,  and 
encamped  over  against  Athens  on  the  land-side,  pitching  his  tent 
in  the  Academeia,  a  celebrated  gymnasium  outside  the  walls. 

Even  at  this  supreme  moment  the  courage  of  the  Athenians 
did  not  fail  them.  Hoping  against  hope,  they  blocked  up  the 
mouths  of  their  harbors,  manned  their  walls,  summoned  every  avail- 
able man  under  arms,  and  proclaimed  an  amnesty  ^  for  all  political 
and  civil  criminals  who  would  join  in  the  defense  of  the  city.  When 
the  senator  Archestratus  advised  an  immediate  surrender  at  dis- 
cretion to  the  Spartans  as  the  only  available  course,  he  was  promptly 
thrown  into  prison.  But  Athens  was  without  money,  ships,  allies, 
or  corn,  and  the  end  could  not  long  be  delayed.  After  some 
months  of  blockade,  when  many  had  already  died  of  starvation, 
they  sent  ambassadors  to  the  ephors,  offering  to  become  allies  of 
Sparta  and  to  renounce  all  claims  to  their  old  naval  empire,  but 
requiring  that  they  should  be  left  with  the  Long  Walls  and  the 
fortification  of  Peiraeus  intact.  The  ephors  refused  to  see  the 
envoys,  and  told  them  not  to  come  again  till  they  had  grown 
wiser.  A  little  later  the  Ecclesia  commissioned  Theramenes  to  go 
on  a  private  mission  to  Lysander,  and  to  ascertain  from  him  what 
terms  the  ephors  were  likely  to  grant.  Theramenes,  who  was 
once  more  intriguing  for  an  oligarchic  revolution  in  the  city,  re- 
mained no  less  than  three  months  with  Lysander,  waiting  till  the 
famine  had  grown  intolerable.  Then  he  returned,  ,and  reported 
that  he  could  get  no  definite  information,  but  that  the  ephors 
would  receive  an  embassy,  if  it  was  invested  with  full  powers  to 
agree  to  any  terms.  Accordingly  the  Ecclesia  dispatched  Thera- 
menes and  nine  other  envoys  to  Sparta.  On  their  arrival  the  full 
congress  of  the  Peloponnesian  alliance  was  assembled,  to  debate 
on  the  lot  of  Athens.  The  representatives  of  Corinth  and  Thebes 
•1  It  was  this  amnesty  which  saved  Callixenus  from  condemnation. 


378  GREECE 

404  B.C. 

urged  that  no  mercy  should  be  shown  to  the  tyrant  city,  now  that 
she  was  brought  low;  they  would  have  treated  her  as  she  had 
treated  Melos  and  Scione,  and  made  an  end  of  her  altogether.  But 
the  Spartan  Government,  with  unexpected  moderation,  announced 
that  it  would  not  consent  to  the  utter  annihilation  of  a  city  which, 
in  spite  of  all  its  crimes,  had  done  good  service  for  Greece  in 
■  ancient  days :  Athens  should  be  rendered  harmless  forever,  but  not 
destroyed.  Accordingly  the  terms  which  were  laid  before  the 
Athenian  ambassadors  were  that  Athens  should  demolish  the  Long 
Walls  and  the  fortification  of  Peiraeus,  become  a  subject  ally  of 
Sparta,  swear  to  furnish  her  with  a  contingent  of  troops  whenever 
called  upon,  recall  her  oligarchic  exiles,  and  consent  that  her  navy 
should  be  restricted  to  twelve  vessels. 

Hard  as  these  conditions  were,  they  were  at  any  rate  better 
than  the  utter  destruction  which  many  of  the  Athenians  had  been 
dreading.  The  war-party  had  been  melting  away  as  the  famine 
grew  more  and  more  dreadful,  and  its  last  leader,  the  demagogue 
Cleophon,  had  been  killed  in  a  riot.  When  Theramenes  reappeared 
in  the  city,  and  announced  that  Sparta  had  consented  to  grant 
terms  of  peace,  a  shout  of  joy  went  up  from  the  famishing  multi- 
tude, and  few  cared  to  ask  fo;*  the  details  of  the  treaty.  Next  day 
the  Ecclesia  ratified  the  agreement,  and  the  gates  were  thrown 
open  to  the  enemy. 

Lysander  landed  with  great  pomp  at  Peiraeus,  and  took  posses- 
sion both  of  the  upper  and  the  lower  city.  He  destroyed  the 
arsenal,  took  away  the  few  w^ar-galleys  which  lay  in  the  harbor, 
and  burned  those  w^hich  were  upon  the  stocks.  Then  the  work  of 
demolishing  the  fortifications  was  taken  in  hand ;  in  presence  of  the 
Peloponnesian  army  and  navy  the  Long  Walls  were  breached,  while 
triumphant  music  and  choric  dances  testified  to  the  exultation  of 
the  conquerors.  A  shout  went  up  from  the  victorious  ranks  that 
Greece  was  freed  of  her  tyrant,  and  that  every  city  could  at  last 
be  sure  of  her  autonomy. 

Thus  ended  the  Peloponnesian  w^ar,  on  the  sixteenth  day  of  the 
month  Munychion,  404  b.c.^  twenty-seven  years  after  the  attempt 
of  the  Thebans  on  Plataea,  which  had  marked  its  commencement. 


Chapter   XXXV 

SPARTAN  SUPREMACY  IN  GREECE,  404-396  B.C. 

FRO]\I  the  day  of  Salamis  to  the  day  of  Aegospotami  Greek 
history  possesses  a  dramatic  unity  which  it  does  not  display 
in  any  other  age.  A  great  problem  was  worked  out  in 
those  seventy-six  years — whether  the  Greeks  were  capable,  under 
favorable  circumstances,  of  subordinating  civic  and  tribal  jealousies 
to  the  general  interests  of  the  Hellenic  race,  and  of  combining  into 
a  great  federal  state.  All  the  events  of  the  period  group  them- 
selves around  the  growth,  culmination,  and  destruction  of  the 
Athenian  empire.  No  city  had  ever  such  an  opportunity  of  for- 
warding the  unity  of  Greece  as  had  Athens  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth 
century.  Her  supremacy  was  established,  not  by  force,  but  by  the 
free  and  willing  accession  of  hundreds  of  states.  The  lonians  and 
Islanders,  in  gratitude  for  their  liberation  from  the  Persian  yoke, 
placed  themselves  entirely  at  her  disposal.  Half  the  cities  of 
Greece  were  drawn  within  the  circle  of  her  influence,  and  ere  long 
there  were  signs  that  the  rest  might  follow.  In  457  B.C.  the  union 
of  the  whole  Hellenic  race  on  both  sides  of  the  Aegean  into  a 
confederacy  centering  round  Athens  seemed  quite  possible. 

We  have  seen  that  this  prospect  was  never  to  be  realized;  the 
states  which  had  once  regarded  Athens  as  their  savior  and  pro- 
tector, were  found,  after  a  while,  joining  eagerly  with  her  ancient 
enemies,  and  straining  every  nerve  in  the  endeavor  to  cut  them- 
selves loose  from  their  alliance.  They  had  their  wish ;  Athens 
succumbed  under  a  series  of  unparalleled  disasters,  and  sank  from 
an  imperial  city  to  a  second-rate  provincial  town. 

Was  the  failure  of  the  great  experiment  in  the  direction  of  the 
unity  of  Greece  due  to  the  crimes  and  blunders  of  Athens,  or  to 
the  inherent  impossibility  of  the  task  she  had  undertaken?  On 
the  one  hand,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Athens  did  not  persevere 
in  her  original  resolve  to  deal  justly  and  fairly  with  the  cities 
which  had  put  themselves  into  her  hands.  Although  her  rule  was 
not  oppressive  or  severe,  it  was  essentially  selfish ;  she  administered 

379 


380  GREECE 

404  B.C. 

the  states  of  the  Confederacy  of  Delos  for  her  own  private  benefit, 
involved  them  in  wars  with  which  they  had  no  concern,  and  spent 
their  money  lavishly  on  purely  Athenian  objects.  In  short,  she 
made  herself  a  tyrant  city,  though  her  tyranny  was  after  the  model 
of  Peisistratus  and  not  of  Periander.  Sometimes  she  even  indulged 
in  acts  of  cruelty  and  oppression  of  the  most  flagrant  character,  as 
in  her  dealings  with  Aegina,  Sci5ne,  and  Melos. 

But,  in  spite  of  all  the  faults  and  crimes  of  Athens,  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  breaking  up  of  the  Confederacy  of  Delos  must  be 
ascribed  to  another  cause.  The  really  fatal  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
Grecian  unity  was  the  character  of  the  Greeks.  The  passion  for 
local  autonomy  was  so  deeply  rooted  in  their  breasts  that  it  domi- 
nated every  other  feeling.  Neither  glory  nor  gain  could  compensate 
them  for  that  curtailment  of  their  municipal  liberties  which  a 
federal  union  made  necessary.  Even  if  every  state  of  the  Delian 
confederation  had  been  allowed  a  fair  share  in  the  management  of 
public  affairs,  we  may  be  certain  that  discontent  and  secession  would 
have  followed.  Much  more  was  this  bound  to  be  the  case  when 
"  representation  did  not  accompany  taxation,"  and  when  Athens 
made  no  pretense  of  allowing  her  allies  to  participate  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  League.  The  Spartans  had  caught  the  spirit  of  the 
times  when  they  bade  Athens,  at  the  commencement  of  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  war,  "  to  restore  their  liberty  to  the  states  of  Greece,"  and 
proclaimed  that  the  struggle  was  a  crusade  in  behalf  of  local  auton- 
omy. This  watchword  rallied  to  the  Spartan  cause  every  dis- 
contented member  of  the  Delian  League,  and  to  it  we  may  fairly 
say  that  Spartan's  final  triumph  was  due,  for  without  the  aid  which 
she  received  from  the  revolted  allies  she  could  never  have  guided 
the  war  to  the  conclusion  at  which  it  actually  arrived. 

It  remained  to  be  seen  how  Sparta,  after  posing  for  so  long  as 
the  enemy  of  tyranny  and  the  protector  of  local  liberties,  would  deal 
with  Greece  in  the  day  of  her  triumph.  A  bitter  disappointment 
awaited  the  states  which  had  been  so  simple  as  to  believe  that  the 
Lacedaemonians  had  laid  aside  their  ancient  selfishness.  Lysander 
soon  showed  them  that  they  had  only  changed  a  light  taskmaster 
for  a  stern  one,  and  that  the  empire  of  Athens  was  to  be  replaced 
by  the  empire  of  Sparta.  Some  of  his  first  measures,  indeed,  were 
intended  to  conciliate  the  public  opinion  of  Greece;  he  restored  the 
few  surviving  Aeginetans  and  Melians  to  the  homes  from  which 
they  had  been  expelled  by  Athens,  and  gave  back  Naupactus  to  the 


SPARTAN    SUPREMACY  381 

404  B.C. 

Locrians,  driving  out  its  Messenian  inhabitants,  who  now  took 
refuge  in  Libya.  But  such  acts  were  few  and  far  between;  the 
greater  part  of  Lysander's  doings  were  of  a  very  different  character. 
While  the  war  was  still  raging  in  Asia,  and  the  efforts  of 
Athens  were  still  to  be  feared,  it  had  been  most  natural  that  Spartan 
garrisons  should  be  placed  in  the  cities  of  Ionia  and  the  Hellespont, 
and  Spartan  governors  put  at  the  head  of  their  military  forces. 
These  governors,  or  Harmosts/  as  they  were  called,  were  to  be  found 
everywhere  at  the  end  of  the  war.  Their  authority  was  backed  by 
the  support  of  committees  chosen  from  among  the  most  philo- 
Spartan  citizens  of  each  state — bodies  which  were  known  as  Dechar- 
chies,  from  their  usually  consisting  of  ten  members.  When  the 
war  was  ended,  it  was  generally  expected  that  the  Decarchies 
would  be  dissolved,  and  the  Harmosts  and  their  troops  recalled. 
But  Lysander  had  no  such  intention ;  he  had  taken  great  pains  to 
organize  the  system,  had  selected  Harmosts  from  among  his  own 
personal  followers,  and  carefully  superintended  the  choice  of  the 
Decarchies.  When  Athens  had  long  fallen,  and  the  months  were 
passing  by,  the  Greeks  of  Asia  found  their  cities  still  occupied  by 
foreign  troops,  and  their  constitutional  magistrates  impeded  in 
their  functions  by  the  irresponsible  committees  of  ten.  Gradually 
it  began  to  dawn  upon  them  that  the  system  was  intended  to  be 
permanent,  and  that,  instead  of  the  occasional  visits  of  the  Athenian 
tax-gatherer,  they  were  to  experience  the  continual  presence  of 
the  Spartan  Harmost.  The  Decarchies  and  the  Lacedaemonian 
governors  played  into  each  other's  hands;  the  former  ruled  the 
state  as  a  strict  oligarchy,  and  if  any  democratic  feeling  manifested 
itself,  promptly  put  it  down  by  the  swords  of  the  garrison;  the 
Harmost,  in  return  for  his  assistance,  was  allowed  to  peculate  and 
plunder  to  his  heart's  content — a  gratification  which  most  Spartans 
keenly  appreciated.  Such  a  form  of  government  soon  became  un- 
bearable to  the  cities  of  Asia,  most  of  whom  had  long  been  accus- 
tomed to  a  democratic  constitution,  while  all  contained  a  strong 
democratic  element  in  their  population.  It  was  not  long  before 
they  discovered  that  Sparta's  little  finger  was  thicker  than  Athens's 
loins,  and  learned  to  curse  the  day  in  which  they  changed  their 
masters. 

1  M/o/^OfTTi;?,  organizer,  had  been  a  name  originally  applied  to  the  com- 
missioners whom  Sparta  kept  resident  among  the  towns  of  the  Perioeci  in 
Laconia. 


382  GREECE 

404   B.C. 

But  the  oppression  of  the  Harmost  and  the  Decarchy  was  not 
the  worst  that  the  cities  of  the  Asiatic  mainland  had  to  fear. 
Sparta  had  conquered  only  by  the  aid  of  Persia,  and  was  bound 
by  stringent  treaties  to  give  her  ally  a  free  hand.  Accord- 
ingly, Cyrus  and  Pharnabazus  proceeded  ere  long  to  encroach 
upon  the  Hellenic  cities  of  the  coast,  while  Lysander  stood 
aside  or  tacitly  approved  their  doings.  Persian  mercenary  troops 
had  been  admitted  into  many  places  while  the  war  was  in  progress, 
and  when  it  was  over  held  the  town  in  behalf  of  the  satrap.  Even 
great  cities  like  Ephesus  and  Miletus  found  themselves  in  danger; 
the  Milesians  had  to  rise  in  arms  and  fight  a  battle  in  their  own 
streets  before  they  could  get  quit  of  the  Persian  garrison.  Many 
of  the  smaller  towns  actually  fell  back  into  slavery  to  the  bar- 
barian, after  seventy  years  of  liberty  under  the  Athenian  rule. 
Sparta  would  do  nothing  to  preserve  her  allies,  except  wdiere  she 
had  a  Harmost  on  the  spot,  and  was  herself  in  practical  possession. 

Meanwhile  Lysander,  whose  command  had  been  renewed,  was 
administering  the  towns  of  the  Aegean  as  if  he  had  been  an  abso- 
lute monarch.  His  satellites  and  flatterers  did  their  best  to  turn  his 
head  with  their  fulsome  applause.  After  he  had  captured  Samos 
(the  town  held  out  a  few  months  longer  than  Athens)  he  w^as 
actually  saluted  wnth  divine  honors ;  altars  were  erected  and  hymns 
addressed  to  him.  He  ruled  despotically,  without  making  any 
reference  to  the  home  government,  and  by  means  of  the  Harmosts 
made  his  influence  felt  in  every  town :  it  w^as  the  nearest  approach 
to  a  personal  monarchy  that  Greece  had  seen  for  centuries.  Ly- 
sander was,  in  fact,  repeating  the  career  of  Pausanias  on  the  same 
stage  where  his  predecessor  had  moved  seventy  years  before.  His 
fate  was  destined  to  be  the  same  as  that  of  the  victor  of  Plataea ; 
after  two  years  of  dominion  he  provoked  the  ephors  to  desperation 
by  his  disregard  for  their  orders.  They  summoned  him  home, 
laid  before  him  countless  charges  of  insubordination  and  misgov- 
ernment,  and  bade  him  defend  himself.  Lysander  made  no  reply, 
but  quitted  the  city,  and  betook  himself  for  a  time  to  Libya.  When 
he  returned  shortly  after,  no  further  attempt  w^as  made  to  molest 
him ;  having  become  a  private  citizen  again,  he  was  no  longer  con- 
sidered dangerous.  But  Lysander  was  skilled  in  intrigue;  finding 
himself  unmolested,  he  set  to  work  to  form  a  party  in  the  state 
with  a  view  to  the  reformation  of  the  constitution  and  the  removal 
of  the  ephoralty;  he  grounded  his  main  hope  on  the  assistance  of 


SPARTAN    SUPREMACY  383 

404   B.C. 

Agesilaus,  brother  of  the  reigning  king,  Agis,  who  was  his  inti- 
mate personal  friend  and  admirer. 

The  removal  of  Lysander  made  no  difference  in  the  character 
of  the  Spartan  rule;  the  ephors  proved  as  unscrupulous  as  the 
great  naiiarch  had  been,  wliile  the  Harmosts  were,  if  anything,  a 
trifle  more  oppressive  now  that  they  were  no  longer  working  under 
the  eye  of  a  master. 

How  the  cities  of  Greece  fared  while  Sparta  was  supreme  may 
be  fairly  judged  from  the  single  example  of  the  fate  of  Athens. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  when  she  threw  open  her  gates  to 
Lysander,  one  of  the  conditions  which  she  had  to  accept  was  the 
return  of  her  exiles.  They  were  a  large  body,  the  remains  of  the 
partisans  of  the  Four  Hundred,  who  had  fled  to  the  Spartan  camp 
when  their  conspiracy  failed,  and  had  dwelt  with  the  enemy  ever 
since.  It  was  soon  known  that  the  old  democracy  was  not  to  be 
allowed  to  survive,  and  that  the  Spartans  were  determined  to  put 
the  state  into  the  hands  of  men  whom  they  could  trust.  No  one 
was  surprised  when  an  oligarch  named  Dracontides  rose  in  the 
Ecclesia,  and  proposed  that  a  committee  of  thirty  citizens  should  be 
chosen  to  revise  the  constitution.  When  opposition  was  offered, 
Lysander  himself  appeared  in  the  assembly,  reminded  them  that 
they  were  in  his  power,  and  bade  them  take  counsel  for  their  per- 
sonal safety,  and  not  cavil  upon  points  of  constitutional  law.  This 
threat  silenced  all  opposition,  and  the  list  of  thirty  names  which 
Dracontides  brought  forward  was  carried  without  demur.  It 
included  the  names  of  many  of  the  returned  exiles,  and  was,  of 
course,  composed  entirely  of  oligarchs.  The  most  prominent  mem- 
bers were  Critias,  an  exile  and  an  old  member  of  the  Four  Hun- 
dred, and  Theramenes,  who  had  once  more  swerved  back  to  oli- 
garchy when  he  saw  that  the  tide  was  now  running  in  its  favor — 
a  conversion  quite  in  keeping  with  his  nickname  of  the  "  Turn- 
coat."2 

The  thirty  commissioners,  on  whom  later  generations  bestowed 
the  name  of  the  "  Thirty  Tyrants,"  were  designed  to  play  at  Athens 
the  part  w'hich  the  Decarchies  carried  out  in  the  states  of  Asia. 
Though  nominally  appointed  only  to  revise  the  constitution,  they 
took  possession  of  every  function  of  government,  and  showed  no 
intention  whatever  of  laying  down  their  power.      They  abolished 

2  Kodop'Mx;,  from  the  name  of  the  buskin,  which  would  fit  the  right  or  the 
left  foot  equally  well. 


384  GREECE 

404  B.C. 

the  Dicasteries  and  the  Ecclesia,  and  placed  all  jurisdiction  in 
the  hands  of  the  Boule,  which  they  had  first  purged  of  every  mem- 
ber who  was  not  a  declared  oligarch.  Having  thus  prepared  the 
judicial  machinery  for  making  away  with  anyone  who  should 
dare  to  oppose  them,  they  proceeded  to  strengthen  their  position  by 
asking  Lysander  to  grant  them  a  Spartan  garrison.  Accordingly 
seven  hundred  Peloponnesians  entered  the  town  under  a  Harmost 
named  Callibius,  and  took  possession  of  the  citadel. 

The  next  step  of  the  Thirty  was  to  commence  a  systematic  per- 
secution of  prominent  citizens  who  were  noted  for  their  democratic 
tendencies.  Several  officers  who  had  served  with  distinction  dur- 
ing the  late  war  were  condemned  to  death  on  futile  pretexts. 
Others — the  most  prominent  of  whom  was  Thrasybulus,  the  gen- 
eral of  the  democracy  at  Samos — were  driven  into  exile.  The 
man.  however,  of  whom  the  Thirty  stood  in  the  greatest  fear  was 
Alcibiades,  who  might  at  any  time  return  to  Athens  and  head 
a  democratic  rising.  He  was  out  of  their  own  reach,  but  they 
besought  Lysander  to  see  to  him ;  the  Spartan  passed  on  the  request 
to  the  satrap  Pharnabazus,  who  caused  Alcibiades  to  be  assas- 
sinated as  he  was  traveling  through  Phrygia  on  his  way  to  visit  the 
court  of  Susa. 

The  first  proscriptions  which  the  Thirty  took  in  hand  were 
purely  political,  but  ere  long  they  began  to  extend  the  sphere  of 
their  operations.  Men  who  had  taken  no  prominent  part  in  poli- 
tics, but  were  personally  objectionable  to  members  of  the  Thirty, 
were  soon  included  in  the  list  of  victims.  Then  followed  many 
whose  only  crime  was  that  they  were  wealthy  and  that  their  lands 
or  their  treasure  were  coveted  by  some  prominent  oligarch ;  among 
these  the  most  noted  name  was  that  of  Niceratus,  son  of  the  gen- 
eral Nicias,  who  was  reputed  the  richest  man  in  Athens.  After 
these  atrocities  many  of  the  Thirty  felt  that  they  had  gone  far 
enough,  and  proposed  to  halt  in  their  career  of  crime.  Theramenes, 
who  perceived  that,  in  spite  of  the  Spartan  garrison,  the  Athenian 
people  would  be  driven  to  a  rising  in  sheer  despair,  was  especially 
urgent  on  the  side  of  moderation,  and  his  colleagues  soon  began 
to  suspect  that  he  was  on  the  eve  of  one  of  his  periodical  con- 
versions. 

Crilias,  however,  backed  by  the  more  desperate  members  of  the 
gang,  was  determined  to  persevere.  The  only  precaution  which 
they  took  was  to  disarm  the  populace  before  proceeding  to  further 


SrARTAN    SUPREMACY  385 

404    B.C. 

extremities.  Having  first  drawn  up  a  list  of  three  thousand  citi- 
zens whom  they  thought  they  could  trust,  they  proclaimed  that 
this  body  alone  should  enjoy  full  civic  rights.  Then  they  held 
a  review  of  the  whole  armed  force  of  the  city,  summoning  the  three 
thousand  to  meet  in  the  market-place,  while  the  rest  of  the  citizens 
were  scattered  in  small  bodies  in  different  posts.  One  after  another 
these  bodies  were  confronted  by  the  Laconian  hoplites  of  Callibius, 
and  bidden  to  lay  down  their  arms.  They  obeyed,  and  were  sent 
away  disarmed  to  their  homes,  while  their  weapons  were  stored  in 
the  Acropolis.  Thus  the  three  thousand  were  the  only  armed  force 
left  in  the  state. 

Having  thus  stripped  the  people  of  their  arms,  Critias  and  his 
faction  launched  out  in  the  wildest  excesses,  and  Athens  experi- 
enced a  perfect  reign  of  terror.  Day  by  day  citizens  were  arrested, 
tried  on  the  most  frivolous  charges,  and  condemned  to  death.  No 
man  of  property  could  call  his  life  his  own,  for  the  appetite  of  the 
Thirty  for  confiscation  and  plunder  seemed  insatiable.  It  was  not 
only  citizens  that  suffered ;  the  wealth  of  the  metics,  or  resident 
aliens,  marked  them  out  as  fair  game,  and  ere  long  they  w^ere  being 
imprisoned  and  slain  by  the  score.  The  legislation  of  the  Thirty 
was  as  despotic  as  their  administration;  by  one  law  they  even 
forbade  everyone,  except  members  of  the  Three  Thousand,  to  dwell 
in  Athens,  and  directed  all  other  classes  to  disperse  to  the  country 
demes. 

Everyone  except  Critias  and  his  immediate  followers  felt  that 
the  state  of  affairs  was  too  monstrous  to  last.  Theramenes  grew 
more  and  more  energetic  in  his  protests  against  the  policy  of  the 
majority,  till  they  came  to  consider  him  as  utterly  unbearable. 
Critias  then  resolved  to  rid  himself  of  his  over-squeamish  col- 
league ;  he  armed  a  considerable  body  of  his  friends  and  dependents, 
and  brought  them  to  the  doors  of  the  council  chamber  while  the 
senate  was  in  session.  He  then  propounded  two  decrees,  one  allow- 
ing the  Thirty  to  put  to  death,  without  trial,  anyone  who  was  not 
a  member  of  the  Three  Thousand,  the  other  expelling  from  the 
Three  Thousand  anyone  who  had  opposed  the  Four  Hundred  in 
411  B.C.  The  decrees  were  obviously  aimed  at  Theramenes,  who 
sprang  to  his  feet  and  began  to  defend  himself.  When  he  ap- 
peared to  be  carrying  the  senate  with  him,  Critias  ordered  his  armed 
men  to  enter  the  house,  crying  out  that  he  would  not  allow  the 
senate  to  be  deceived  by  specious  words,  and  that  his  friends  were 


386  GREECE 

404    B.C. 

come  to  see  that  justice  was  done  on  a  traitor.  "  It  is,"  he  added, 
"now  enacted  that  no  one  in  the  Hst  of  the  Three  Thousand  shall 
be  put  to  death  without  a  regular  vote  passed  by  you,  but  I  hereby 
strike  out  the  name  of  Theramenes  from  the  list,  and  thus  we  are 
able  to  condemn  him  to  death," 

Theramenes  sprang-  to  the  altar  which  stood  in  the  midst  of  the 
council-chamber,  and  clung  to  it,  adjuring  the  senators  by  every 
plea,  human  and  divine,  to  see  that  he  was  not  made  away  with  in 
this  atrocious  style.  But  the  ministers  of  death  tore  him  from  the 
sanctuary,  dragged  him  straight  to  prison,  and  compelled  him  to 
drink  the  fatal  hemlock.  He  died  with  a  courage  that  surprised  his 
enemies — a  bitter  taunt  at  Critias  on  his  lips.  His  fate  served  to 
show  the  Athenians  that  not  even  the  most  studious  trimming  and 
time-serving  would  enable  a  man  to  be  sure  of  his  life  while  the 
Thirty  were  in  power. 

Even  before  Theramenes  was  dead,  the  storm  was  brewing 
which  was  to  sweep  Critias  and  his  satellites  from  the  helm  of 
affairs.  So  many  citizens  had  by  this  time  fled  abroad,  that  Thebes, 
Megara,  and  the  other  cities  near  Athens  were  crowded  with  refu- 
gees. At  Thebes  they  were  so  numerous  that  after  a  time  Thrasy- 
biilus,  who  had  settled  in  that  town,  was  able  to  gather  a  hundred 
men  resolute  enough  to  make  a  desperate  attempt  to  free  Athens. 
Some  Boeotian  friends  supplied  him  with  arms  and  provisions  for 
this  little  band;  and  he  then  crossed  the  Attic  frontier  and  seized 
the  deserted  fort  of  Phyle.  The  Thirty  at  first  paid  little  attention 
to  the  adventurers,  but  presently  sent  an  expedition  to  storm  the 
castle.  Its  first  assault  failed,  and  a  heavy  fall  of  snow  drove 
it  back  to  Athens.  When  a  second  force  was  sent  out,  Thrasy- 
bulus,  whose  band  had  now  swelled  to  seven  hundred  men,  fell 
upon  it  in  the  night  and  put  it  to  the  rout. 

Encouraged  by  this  success,  the  exiles  marched  boldly  on,  and 
threw  themselves  into  Peiraeus.  The  walls  of  the  harbor-city  had 
been  destroyed  by  Lysander,  but  its  streets  afforded  great  facilities 
for  defense.  Thrasybulus  ranged  his  men  on  the  slope  of  the  hill 
of  Munychia,  and  waited  to  be  attacked;  hundreds  of  citizens  had 
now  joined  him,  but  they  were  destitute  of  armor,  and  were  forced 
to  make  themselves  wicker  shields,  and  to  turn  to  account  any  mis- 
cellaneous weapons  that  came  to  hand.  Presently  the  forces  of  the 
Thirty  were  seen  coming  down  from  Athens;  Critias  himself  led 
on  the  Three  Thousand,  while  Callibius  supported  him  with  the 


SPARTAN    SUPREMACY  387 

404    B.C. 

seven  hundred  Peloponnesians  of  the  garrison.  They  advanced 
in  a  sohd  column  along  the  street  which  leads  up  the  hill  of 
Munychia,  and  met  the  exiles  on  the  slope.  But  their  superior 
numbers  were  of  no  avail  in  the  narrow  way,  while  the  missiles 
which  were  showered  upon  them  from  over  the  heads  of  Thrasy- 
bCilus's  men  told  fatally  on  their  crowded  ranks.  After  a  few 
minutes  of  hand-to-hand  fighting  the  oligarchs  gave  way,  and  rolled 
backwards  towards  Athens,  leaving  Critias  and  seventy  more  dead 
on  the  hillside. 

This  disastrous  failure  led  to  fierce  dissensions  among  the 
defeated  party.  The  surviving  members  of  the  Thirty  and  the 
other  partisans  of  Critias,  finding  themselves  in  the  minority,  had 
to  fly  to  Eleusis,  which  they  had  already  prepared  as  a  fortress 
in  time  of  need  by  slaying  all  the  Eleusinians — no  less  than  three 
hundred  in  number — who  were  known  to  be  partisans  of  de- 
mocracy. Here  they  made  ready  to  defend  themselves,  and  sent 
urgent  appeals  for  aid  to  Sparta.  To  succeed  them  ten  more  oli- 
garchs were  elected,  who  still  refused  to  come  to  terms  with  Thrasy- 
biilus.  Some  desultory  fighting  took  place  outside  the  walls  of 
Athens,  but  it  was  soon  ended  by  the  news  that  a  Spartan  army 
and  fleet  were  approaching.  It  remained  to  be  seen  what  course 
the  Spartan  Government  would  adopt,  and  of  this  there  was  con- 
siderable doubt.  Lysander's  party  were  for  aiding  the  Thirty  to 
reconquer  Athens,  and  Lysander  himself  hurried  to  the  spot  to 
support  his  proteges.  But  the  relations  between  the  nauarch  and 
the  ephors  were  at  that  moment  drawing  towards  their  final  rupture, 
and,  luckily  for  Athens,  any  measure  that  Lysander  favored  was 
sure  to  be  bitterly  opposed.  Accordingly  the  ephors  sent  out  King 
Pausanias  to  take  over  the  command  of  the  army  in  Attica,  know- 
ing that  he  was  a  declared  enemy  of  Lysander's  policy.  Pausanias 
was  a  man  of  generous  sentiments  and  approved  moderation ;  he 
had  the  old  Spartan  hatred  of  tyranny,  and  was  determined  to  do 
nothing  for  the  detestable  gang  at  Eleusis.  Instead  of  falling  upon 
the  democrats  at  Peiraeus  and  crushing  them,  he  undertook  to 
reconcile  them  to  the  party  which  held  the  city  of  Athens.  Even 
when  he  became  involved  in  a  skirmish  with  the  troops  of  Thrasy- 
bfdus,  and  saw  several  Spartan  officers  slain,  he  was  not  to  be 
diverted  from  his  pacific  design.  With  some  trouble  he  induced 
both  sides  to  accept  his  good  offices.  The  ten  oligarchs  in  the 
city  were  replaced  by  another  board  who  were  ready  to  treat  for 


388  GREECE 

403-402   B.C. 

peace,  and  then  Pausanias,  after  settling  the  terms  of  reconcihation, 
took  his  army  home.  By  the  new  agreement  all  the  existing  magis- 
trates in  the  city  were  deposed  and  superseded  by  regularly-elected 
strategi ;  all  the  exiles  were  restored  to  their  property  and  civic 
rights,  while  the  oligarchs  and  their  followers  were  to  be  allowed 
to  depart  to  Eleusis  undisturbed.  To  mark  the  end  of  the  time 
of  troubles,  a  solemn  thanksgiving  was  held,  and  new  archons 
chosen.  The  name  of  Pythodorus,  who  had  held  the  post  of 
eponymous  archon  under  the  Thirty,  was  solemnly  expunged  from 
the  official  lists  of  the  state,  and  the  period  during  which  he  pre- 
sided was  denominated  "  the  year  of  anarchy."  Thus  sixteen 
months  after  Lysander  had  captured  Athens  the  old  constitution 
was  restored  to  the  much-tried  city  (September,  403  B.C.). 

The  Thirty  came  to  an  ill  end.  Abandoned  by  Sparta,  they 
still  held  out  at  Eleusis  for  a  long  time;  but  at  last  they  were  re- 
duced to  ask  for  terms.  When  their  leaders  came  into  the  Athe- 
nian camp  to  endeavor  to  enter  into  a  negotiation,  they  w^ere  sud- 
denly fallen  upon  and  slain  by  the  infuriated  soldiery.  The  rest 
escaped  abroad  and  died  in  exile. 

Athens  was  now  once  more  a  democracy,  but  she  still  remained 
a  humble  vassal  of  Sparta,  bound  to  follow  her  lead  in  all  matters 
of  foreign  policy,  and  to  send  her  contingents  of  men  and  ships 
whenever  called  upon.  Years  were  to  elapse  before  the  city  that 
had  once  ruled  the  Aegean  was  able  to  exercise  any  influence  on  the 
affairs  of  Greece. 

The  settlement  of  the  internal  quarrels  of  the  Athenians  was 
by  no  means  the  only  task  that  fell  to  the  lot  of  Sparta  in  the  years 
immediately  following  the  Peloponnesian  war.  In  402  B.C.  she 
fell  upon  Elis,  partly  in  revenge  of  the  old  injury  caused  by  the 
disloyal  behavior  of  the  Eleans  in  the  Mantinean  war,  partly  on 
account  of  new  causes  of  quarrel.  In  two  campaigns  the  troops 
of  Elis  were  beaten  out  of  the  field,  her  territory  ravaged  from  end 
to  end,  and  all  her  subject  districts  taken  from  her  and  restored 
to  independence. 

But  events  of  far  greater  importance  were  occurring  in  Asia 
Minor.  In  404  b.c.  King  Darius  11.  of  Persia  died,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  his  eldest  son,  Artaxerxes  II.  Cyrus,  his  younger  son, 
the  friend  and  ally  of  Lysander,  had  long  been  scheming  to  obtain 
the  crown,  through  the  influence  of  his  mother,  the  Queen  Pary- 
satis,  w^ho  had  done  her  best  to  induce  her  husband  to  pass  over 


SPARTAN    SUPREMACY  389 

403-402   B.C. 

his  first  born  and  leave  the  throne  to  her  favorite.  When  his 
plans  were  foiled  by  the  death  of  Darius,  the  ambitious  young 
prince  determined  to  obtain  by  force  what  he  could  not  win  by 
intrigue.  He  made  large  levies  of  native  troops  in  his  satrapies, 
but  rested  his  main  hopes  on  collecting  a  strong  body  of  Greek 
mercenaries.  Cyrus  was  a  man  of  brilliant  talents,  and  had 
learned,  by  continual  intercourse  with  his  Spartan  friends,  the 
best  ways  of  dealing  with  Hellenes.  His  personality  was  so  attrac- 
tive and  his  service  so  profitable  that  he  had  no  difficulty  in  getting 
together  as  many  men  as  he  needed.  Over  thirteen  thousand  hop- 
lites,  under  Clearchus,  once  Spartan  Harmost  of  Byzantium,  and 
other  chiefs  were  at  last  gathered  beneath  his  banner. 

Knowing  the  dread  with  which  the  Greeks  regarded  the  vast 
distances  of  the  Persian  empire,  Cyrus  did  not  tell  his  mercenaries 
the  real  object  of  his  march,  but  persuaded  them  that  he  was  about 
to  attack  the  predatory  tribes  of  Southern  Asia  Minor.  Insensibly 
he  led  them  eastward  till  they  found  themselves  close  to  the  Eu- 
phrates, and  so  far  committed  to  the  expedition  that  it  was  hard 
to  turn  back.  A  heavy  increase  of  pay  soon  persuaded  them  to  pass 
on  into  Mesopotamia  and  commence  their  march  on  Susa.  King 
Artaxerxes  and  his  army  did  not  make  their  appearance  till  Cyrus 
was  within  a  few  days'  journey  of  Babylon.  But  hard  by  Cunaxa 
the  Persian  host  came  suddenly  in  sight,  stretching  for  miles  over 
the  plain,  and  outnumbering  by  tenfold  the  army  of  Cyrus.  A 
battle  immediately  followed,  in  which  the  Greeks  on  the  right 
wing  of  the  rebel  army  routed  all  that  was  opposed  to  them.  But 
Cyrus  himself  was  slain  as  he  pushed  forward  with  a  handful  of 
horsemen  in  a  foolhardy  attempt  to  pierce  Artaxerxes's  body-guard 
and  end  the  struggle  by  the  death  of  his  brother. 

The  native  troops  of  the  rebel  prince  at  once  dispersed,  and 
the  Greeks  found  themselves  stranded  in  the  midst  of  Mesopotamia, 
hundreds  of  miles  from  the  sea,  without  a  cause  for  which  to  fight 
or  a  guide  to  show  them  the  way  home.  When  they  attempted  to 
negotiate  for  an  unmolested  retreat,  the  satrap  Tissaphernes  lured 
Clearchus  and  their  other  leaders  to  a  conference  and  massacred 
them.  All  that  they  could  do  was  to  close  their  ranks,  elect  new 
officers — among  them  Xenophon,  the  historian  of  the  expedition — 
and  attempt  to  force  their  passage  northward  into  the  Armenian 
mountains,  where  the  power  of  Persia  could  hardly  reach  them. 
In  spite  of  the  continual  attacks  of  the  horsemen  of  Tissaphernes, 


390  GREECE 

399   B.C. 

the  Greeks  contrived  to  make  their  way  along  the  Tigris  and  past 
the  ruins  of  Nineveh,  till  they  were  able  to  leave  the  plains  and 
their  harassing  enemy  behind.  But  when  they  plunged  into  the 
mountains  of  Armenia  their  task  was  no  easier ;  almost  without 
exception  the  tribes  of  the  hill  country  turned  out  in  arms  against 
them.  Passes  were  blocked  and  villages  burned  at  their  approach, 
and  they  had  to  fight  for  every  inch  of  their  way.  When  the  winter 
fell,  and  they  found  themselves  compelled  to  wade  through  miles 
of  snow-drift  in  the  country  of  the  fierce  Carduchians,  their  courage 
had  almost  failed  them.  But  they  hardened  their  hearts,  pushed 
steadily  northward,  and  were  at  last  rewarded  by  the  sight  of  the 
Euxine  stretching  at  their  feet.  A  few  days  more  brought  them  to 
Trapezus,  and  put  them  once  more  in  touch  with  the  Hellenic  world 
after  twelve  months  of  wandering.  But  even  now  their  troubles 
were  not  ended;  every  Greek  city  looked  with  suspicion  on  a  band 
of  unemployed  mercenaries  still  ten  thousand  strong,  and  the  army 
was  refused  help,  sent  on  bootless  errands,  and  finally  stranded  in 
Thrace  in  a  desperate  and  starving  condition.  Just  as  it  was 
about  to  disperse,  war  broke  out  between  Persia  and  Sparta,  and 
the  remnant  of  the  much-tried  army  of  Cyrus  was  taken  into  the 
pay  of  the  Lacedaemonian  general,  Thibron  (399  b.c). 

A  graphic  account  of  the  extraordinary  wanderings  of  the  Ten 
Thousand  has  come  down  to  us  from  the  pen  of  Xenophon  the 
Athenian,  one  of  the  generals  chosen  after  Cunaxa  to  replace  the 
victims  of  the  treachery  of  Tissaphernes.  We  can  judge  from  it 
the  vivid  impression  which  the  adventures  of  the  companions  of 
Cyrus  made  on  the  Greek  mind.  They  had  proved  that  it  was 
possible  to  penetrate,  without  meeting  with  opposition,  into  the 
heart  of  the  dominions  of  the  Great  King,  and  that  a  Greek  army 
of  adequate  size,  under  skillful  generalship,  might  be  trusted  to  go 
anywhere  and  do  anything  in  Asia.  It  was  not  long  before  the 
lesson  was  turned  to  use,  for  war  with  the  Persian  had  just  been 
declared  by  the  Spartan  Government.  Before  Cyrus  had  started  on 
his  expedition  he  had  made  application  for  assistance  to  his  old 
friends  in  Sparta;  his  request  was  granted,  and — although  it  was 
destined  to  bring  him  no  assistance — a  Spartan  fleet  was  sent  to  the 
coast  of  Cilicia.  This  action  had  not  brought  on  any  actual  col- 
lision with  Persia,  but  it  had  provoked  Artaxerxes,  and  made  war 
inevitable.  After  Cunaxa  had  been  fought,  the  king  dispatched 
Tissaphernes  to  Asia  Minor,  investing  him  with  all  the  power  which 


SPARTAN    SUPREMACY  391 

399  B.C. 

had  formerly  been  in  the  hands  of  Cyrus.  Immediately  on  his  ar- 
rival the  satrap  set  to  work  to  subdue  the  Greek  towns  on  the 
Ionian  and  Aeolian  coast,  to  which  he  claimed  a  right  under  the 
terms  of  his  treaty  with  Astyochus  in  412  B.C.  Knowing  that 
they  were  bound  to  come  into  collision  sooner  or  later  with  the 
king,  the  Spartans  resolved  to  declare  war  before  the  cities  fell. 
Accordingly,  when  Tissaphernes  laid  siege  to  Cyme  in  the  early 
spring  of  399  B.C.,  the  ephors  sent  to  its  aid  a  small  army  composed 
of  one  thousand  Laconian  Perioeci,  three  thousand  Peloponnesians, 
and  three  hundred  cavalry  requisitioned  from  Athens.^  Thibron, 
the  officer  placed  in  command,  was  directed  to  enlist  in  his  army 
the  contingents  of  all  the  states  of  Ionia;  but  he  found  them  ill- 
disposed  to  help  him,  on  account  of  the  way  in  which  they  had 
been  treated  since  the  fall  of  Athens.  The  only  important  rein- 
forcement which  he  was  able  to  raise  was  composed  of  the  remains 
of  the  Ten  Thousand.  Even  with  their  aid  he  accomplished  no 
more  than  the  deliverance  of  some  of  the  Greek  towns  of  Aeolis. 

But  when  the  feeble  Thibron  was  succeeded  by  Dercyllidas, 
an  officer  of  energy  and  merit,  the  tide  of  war  took  a  decided  turn 
in  favor  of  Sparta,  and  place  after  place  in  the  Troad  and  Aeolis  fell 
before  the  new  general.  In  the  next  spring  he  shifted  his  operations 
southward,  having  reduced  Pharnabazus,  the  satrap  of  the  Helles- 
pont, to  such  straits  that  he  was  glad  to  conclude  a  truce.  Der- 
cyllidas had  now  to  do  with  Tissaphernes  and  the  Persian  forces 
in  Lydia  and  Caria ;  he  found  this  enemy  also  more  inclined  to 
negotiate  than  to  fight.  When  bidden  to  "  leave  the  Greek  cities 
free,"  Tissaphernes  did  not  refuse,  but  only  made  conditions  about 
the  simultaneous  withdrawal  of  the  Spartan  army  and  of  his  own 
from  the  coast-land.  No  permanent  understanding,  however,  had 
been  reached,  when  affairs  suddenly  took  a  new  turn. 

A  new  reign  had  at  this  moment  commenced  in  Sparta.  King 
Agis,  the  commander  of  so  many  expeditions  during  the  Pelopon- 
nesian  war,  had  lately  died ;  he  left  a  son,  Leotychides,  to  whom  the 
crown  would  naturally  have  passed.  But  ugly  rumors  prevailed 
about  the  parentage  of  this  prince ;  it  was  asserted  by  many  that  he 
was  no  true  son  of  Agis,  but  the  offspring  of  Alcibiades,  who  was 
known  to  have  seduced  the  king's  young  wife  during  his  stay  at 

3  The  knights  at  Athens  had  strongly  supported  the  Thirty,  and  the  govern- 
ment punished  them  on  this  occasion  by  selecting  the  whole  three  hundred  from 
among  the  prominent  oligarchs. 


392  GREECE 

399-397  B.C. 

Sparta.  Accordingly  Agesilans,  the  brother  of  Agis.  put  forward 
a  claim  to  the  throne.  He  was  warmly  supported  by  Lysander, 
who  had  long  been  his  guide  and  companion,  and  believed 
that  he  had  found  in  him  a  fitting  Instrument  for  bringing  about 
the  reform  of  the  Spartan  state-system.  Agesilaus  had  reached  the 
age  of  forty,  but  had  never  yet  held  any  command  or  office  of  im- 
portance. He  was  of  small  stature  and  insignificant  appearance : 
moreover,  he  was  lame  of  one  foot.  Though  he  had  won  consid- 
erable popularity  from  his  courteous  and  kindly  disposition,  no 
one  looked  upon  him  as  a  man  of  mark ;  it  was  universally  believed 
that  he  was  a  mere  tool  of  Lysander.  The  contest  for  the  throne 
was,  therefore,  a  new  trial  of  strength  between  the  ephors  and  the 
victor  of  Aegospotami.  It  was  decided  before  the  Apella,  less  by 
inquiry  into  evidence  than  by  appeals  to  prophecies  and  oracles. 
When  the  supporters  of  Leotychides  produced  a  .  enerable  saying 
which  warned  Sparta  against  "  a  lame  reign,"  and  referred  it  to 
Agesilaus's  personal  deformity,  Lysander  skillfully  turned  the  argu- 
ment against  them  by  declaring  that  the  words  really  meant  the 
reign  of  a  king  of  doubtful  pedigree.  Finally  the  vote  went  in  favor 
of  Agesilaus,  who  ascended  the  throne  late  in  the  year  399  bx. 

Lysander  had  in  reality  provided  himself  with  a  master  and 
not  with  a  servant,  for  the  new  king  concealed  beneath  his  insig- 
nificant exterior  more  energy  and  intelligence  than  any  Spartan 
ruler  since  the  unfortunate  Cleomenes.  Agesilaus  had  resolved  to 
assert  the  old  power  of  the  royal  house,  and  had  availed  himself  of 
the  support  of  Lysander  only  for  his  own  purposes.  However,  he 
and  his  councilor  were  entirely  at  one  in  their  views  on  foreign 
policy ;  both  were  eager  to  push  on  the  war  against  Persia,  having  a 
fixed  belief  that  the  expulsion  of  the  Great  King  from  the  whole 
of  Asia  Minor  would  be  a  feasible  task.  Accordingly  they  used 
their  influence  in  the  state  to  secure  the  appointment  of  Agesilaus 
as  the  successor  of  Dercyllidas,  and  in  397  B.C.  carried  their  point. 
The  king  was  authorized  to  take  with  him  thirty  Spartans  as  a 
council  of  war,  with  Lysander  at  their  head,  and  to  raise  two 
thousand  Laconian  perioeci  and  six  thousand  troops  of  the  allies 
for  service  across  the  seas. 

When  the  contingents  for  this  expedition  were  called  in,  the 
first  grave  symptoms  of  discontent  against  the  Spartan  hegemony 
that  had  yet  been  noted  made  themselves  visible.  Thebes,  Corinth, 
and  Athens  all  refused  to  supply  the  force  that  was  demanded  from 


SPARTAN    SUPREMACY  393 

397   B.C. 

them.  The  Athenians  alleged  poverty  and  weakness;  the  Cor- 
inthians unfavorable  omens  from  their  national  gods;  but  the 
Thebans  made  no  excuses,  and  simply  sent  a  blank  refusal.  Nor 
was  this  all ;  Agesilaus  was  anxious  to  commence  his  undertaking — 
the  first  important  invasion  of  Asia  by  a  Hellenic  army  that  had 
occurred  for  ages — with  a  solemn  and  impressive  ceremony.  Be- 
fore departing  he  went  to  Aulis  on  the  Euripus,  the  port  from  which 
Agamemnon  had  set  forth  to  the  siege  of  Troy,  and  offered  sacrifice 
to  the  gods  of  the  land  in  imitation  of  his  mythical  predecessor. 
The  ceremony  was  hardly  completed,  the  fires  were  still  burning, 
and  the  victims  not  wholly  consumed,  when  a  party  of  Theban 
horse  rode  up,  cast  down  the  altars,  extinguished  the  flames,  and 
bade  the  king  in  the  rudest  way  to  depart  from  their  territory. 
Agesilaus  was  constrained  to  go  on  board  at  once,  and  sailed  away 
to  meet  his  troop-ships,  which  were  lying  off  the  southern  cape  of 
Euboea.  From  that  day  he  nourished  a  fierce  and  not  inexcusable 
hatred  against  the  whole  Theban  race. 

When  Agesilaus  landed  in  Asia  he  was  at  once  met  by  envoys 
from  Tissaphernes,  who  made  great  protestations  of  their  master's 
desire  to  satisfy  the  Spartan  Government.  The  satrap  had  taken 
fright  at  the  arrival  of  such  large  reinforcements  for  the  army  of 
Dercyllidas,  and  was  anxious  to  avert  the  impending  attack.  For 
a  short  time  Agesilaus  listened  to  his  proposals,  and  consented  to 
conclude  a  truce,  but  ere  long  he  discovered  the  hollowness  of  the 
negotiations  into  which  he  had  been  entrapped,  and  set  to  work  in 
good  earnest  to  subdue  the  Lydian  and  Mysian  inland  which  lay 
behind  the  Greek  cities  of  the  coast.  Before  actual  operations  be- 
gan, the  king  was  compelled  to  engage  in  a  trial  of  strength  with 
Lysander.  When  the  victor  of  Ageospotami  arrived  at  Ionia  he 
had  at  once  been  surrounded  by  crowds  of  his  old  dependents,  who 
ignored  the  king  and  paid  court  to  his  councilor  alone.  Agesilaus 
soon  showed  resentment  by  deliberately  refusing  all  petitions  pre- 
ferred in  behalf  of  Lysander's  friends,  and  by  rejecting  any  advice 
that  came  to  him  from  that  quarter.  Ere  long  a  stormy  scene 
ensued ;  Lysander  taunted  the  king  with  ingratitude,  and  was 
bidden  in  return  to  remember  that  the  friend  who  presumes  too 
much  on  past  services  becomes  unbearable.  Finding  Agesilaus 
quite  beyond  his  control  Lysander  was  driven,  when  he  came  to  a 
calmer  mood,  to  solicit  employment  in  some  region  where  his 
humiliation  might  not  be  too  evident.     The  king  consented,  and 


394  GREECE 

396  B.C. 

gave  him  command  of  the  Spartan  forces  on  the  Hellespont,  where 
he  did  good  service  against  Pharnabazus,  until  he  was  called  home 
at  the  end  of  the  year. 

Now  that  he  was  freed  from  the  tutelage  of  Lysander,  Age- 
silaus  proceeded  to  conduct  the  war  on  his  own  system.  He  made 
Ephesus  his  headquarters  and  base  of  operations,  and  from  it  struck 
alternately  north  and  south,  carrying  his  incursions  up  to  the  gates 
of  Sardis,  and  penetrating  far  into  Mysia  and  Caria.  He  drove 
Pharnabazus  out  of  Dascylium,  the  capital  of  his  satrapy,  and  com- 
pelled him  to  migrate  inland  with  all  his  family  and  treasures. 
A  rapid  pursuit  and  a  fortunate  engagement  enabled  him  to  seize 
the  Persian's  camp  and  all  the  wealth  it  contained — a  sum  which 
sufficed  to  maintain  his  army  for  several  months.  The  troops  of 
Tissaphernes  also  suffered  such  constant  reverses  at  the  hands  of 
Agesilaus  that  King  Artaxerxes  was  fain  to  believe  that  his  repre- 
sentative was  designedly  mismanaging  the  war.  Accordingly  he 
had  the  old  satrap  beheaded,  and  appointed  in  his  stead  an  officer 
named  Tithraustes.  But  the  new  governor  fared  no  better  than 
his  predecessor;  Agesilaus  refused  to  listen  to  proposals  for  an 
accommodation,  and  pushed  his  incursions  farther  and  farther  in- 
land. Moreover,  he  stirred  up  the  native  tribes,  especially  the 
Paphlagonians,  against  their  suzerain,  and  raised  numerous  aux- 
iliary troops  from  among  them.  Even  discontented  Persians  of 
rank  began  to  pass  over  to  his  camp,  and  to  array  their  retainers 
among  the  Spartan  auxiliaries.  The  whole  of  Western  Asia  Minor 
seemed  to  be  slipping  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Great  King,  The  Greeks 
of  Ionia,  when  they  saw  how  the  war  was  going  were  induced  to  view 
the  Spartan  domination  with  kinder  eyes ;  they  began  to  make  con- 
tributions of  money  with  some  approach  to  enthusiasm,  and  even 
enlisted  in  considerable  numbers  in  the  ranks  of  Agesilaus.  A 
large  and  efficient  body  of  cavalry  was  formed  from  among  them, 
by  inviting  their  chief  men  to  serve  in  that  arm ;  some  came  them- 
selves, but  the  majority  furnished  and  paid  substitutes,  who  proved 
much  more  amenable  to  discipline  than  the  Ionian  oligarchs  would 
have  been.  But  the  chief  use  to  which  Agesilaus  intended  to  turn 
the  Asiatic  Greeks  was  to  make  them  provide  him  with  a  fleet.  By 
a  special  grant  from  Sparta  he  was  given  the  authority  of  nauarch 
as  well  as  that  of  general.  Then  he  requisitioned  one  hundred  and 
twenty  ships  from  the  Ionian  and  Carian  cities,  and  placed  his 
brother-in-law  Peisander  at  their  head.     This  force  was  intended 


SPARTAN    SUPREMACY  395 

396   B.C. 

to  fall  upon  the  south  coast  of  Asia  Minor ;  while  the  Spartan  army, 
now  more  than  twenty  thousand  strong,  and  in  high  spirits  and 
efficiency,  marched  eastward  to  conquer  the  central  districts  of  the 
peninsula. 

To  all  appearance  the  Persian  power  in  Asia  Minor  was  now 
doomed.  But  Agesilaus  was  not  destined  to  forestall  Alexander 
the  Great.  There  was  one  resource  still  remaining  to  the  Great 
King:  he  might  stir  up  war  in  Europe  to  distract  the  attention  of 
the  Spartans  from  Asia.  This  line  was  now  adopted.  Tithraustes 
sent  across  the  Aegean  a  Rhodian  named  Timocrates,  giving  him 
fifty  talents  of  silver,  and  bidding  him  use  it  to  rouse  the  leading 
men  in  the  states  that  were  known  to  be  discontented  with  the 
Spartan  dominion.  The  mission  was  happily  timed,  and  its  success 
effectually  stopped  the  operations  of  Agesilaus,  and  gave  the  Per- 
sian power  a  new  lease  of  life  for  fifty  years. 


Chapter    XXXVI 

REVOLT  FROM  SPARTA,  395-387  B.C. 

THE  emissary  of  Tithraustes  found  the  task  of  stirring  up 
a  diversion  in  Europe  an  easy  one.  The  states  which  had 
used  Sparta  as  their  instrument  for  the  overthrow  of  Ath- 
ens had  long  been  chafing  against  the  new  ruler  whom  they  had 
given  themselves.  More  especially  was  feeling  running  high  in  the 
larger  cities,  which  had  policies  and  ambitions  of  their  own,  but 
were  compelled  to  subordinate  them  to  the  interests  of  the  Lacedae- 
monians. Adhering  in  one  point  at  least  to  the  programme  which 
they  had  published  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  the 
ephors  had  set  themselves  to  encourage  local  autonomy,  by  isolating 
state  from  state  among  their  allies,  and  by  supporting  cantonal  in- 
dependence, so  long  as  it  was  consistent  with  a  general  deference 
to  the  commands  of  Sparta.  It  resulted  that  the  smaller  states 
throughout  Greece  looked  to  Sparta  for  protection  from  their  larger 
neighbors,  while  the  latter  found  the  Spartan  supremacy  a  com- 
plete bar  to  any  further  extension  of  their  power  and  influence. 
In  Boeotia,  for  example,  there  were  always  two  parties ;  Thebes 
was  continually  striving  to  turn  the  loose  league  of  cities  into  a 
centralized  confederation  dependent  on  herself,  but  Orchomenus, 
Thespiae,  and  the  other  towns  which  clung  to  their  local  independ- 
ence, could  always  check  her  by  calling  in  the  aid  of  Sparta. 
Roughly  speaking,  the  larger  states  of  Greece  were  anxious  to  rid 
themselves  of  their  new  suzerain,  and  obtain  a  free  scope  for  their 
ambition,  while  the  smaller  were  ready  to  support  Sparta,  oppressive 
though  she  might  be,  in  order  to  guarantee  themselves  from  the 
worse  evils  of  servitude  to  their  immediate  neighbors. 

The  Thebans  had  shown  their  discontent  some  years  before 
by  the  insult  which  they  had  inflicted  on  Agesilaus,  and  were 
now  the  leaders  in  open  revolt  against  Sparta.  Their  most  pop- 
ular statesman,  Ismenias,  influenced  by  patriotism  and  ambition 
even  more  than  by  the  Persian  gold  of  Timocrates,  determined  to 
put  himself  in  communication  with  the  malcontents  in  other  states, 

396 


REVOLT  FROM  SPARTA        397 

399   B.C. 

and  to  bring  about  a  collision.  Having  assured  himself  of  the  co- 
operation of  Argos — who,  now  as  always,  was  hungering  after  the 
lands  of  her  neighbors  of  Epidaurus  and  Phlius — and  of  Corinth, 
he  took  the  decisive  step.  The  Locrians  of  Opus,  old  dependents  of 
Thebes,  were  encouraged  to  raid  upon  the  lands  of  the  Phocians, 
a  tribe  whose  loyalty  to  Sparta  was  undoubted.  The  injured  Pho- 
cians appealed  to  their  suzerain,  while  Thebes  at  once  sent  her 
army  into  the  field  to  assist  the  Locrians.  Sparta  then  declared 
war,  without  knowing  that  she  was  thereby  committed  to  a  struggle 
not  merely  with  Thebes,  but  with  Corinth  and  Argos,  whose  gov- 
ernments had  not  yet  declared  themselves. 

While  King  Pausanias,  with  the  contingents  of  the  Pelopon- 
nesus, was  directed  to  cross  the  Isthmus  and  invade  Boeotia  from 
the  south,  Lysander  was  once  more  drawn  from  his  retirement  and 
placed  in  command  of  a  second  army.  With  a  small  Laconian 
contingent  he  crossed  the  Corinthian  Gulf  and  threw  himself  into 
Phocis,  where  he  gathered  together  the  mountain  tribes,  the  Mali- 
ans,  Phocians,  and  Oetaeans,  for  a  raid  into  the  plain  of  the  Cephis- 
sus.  The  Orchomenians,  too,  broke  away  from  the  Boeotian 
League,  joined  the  Spartan,  and  declared  war  on  their  Theban 
neighbors. 

Before  a  blow  had  been  struck  the  Thebans  succeeded  in  en- 
listing another  ally  in  their  cause.  Athens  had  been  for  the  last 
eight  years  endeavoring  to  live  down  her  civil  broils  and  to  fall 
back  into  her  old  manner  of  life.  But  the  crimes  of  the  Thirty  were 
not  easy  to  forget,  and  a  bitterness  pervaded  political  life  which 
had  exceeded  anything  that  had  prevailed  in  the  days  before 
the  Peloponnesian  war.  Prosecutions  which,  whatever  their  form, 
were  really  inspired  by  political  grudges  were  always  rife.  The 
best  known  among  them  is  that  which  led  to  the  condemnation  and 
death  of  the  philosopher  Socrates.  Though  personally  blameless, 
he  had  been  the  tutor  and  associate  of  Critias,  Theramenes,  Pyth- 
odorus,  and  others  of  the  worst  of  the  oligarchs.  Moreover, 
his  philosophic  inquiries  into  every  sphere  of  moralty  and  policies 
shocked  conservative  citizens,  and  his  restless  love  of  disputation 
had  made  him  many  personal  enemies.  When  prosecuted  by  the 
democratic  leader  Anytus  for  "  corrupting  the  youth  and  practicing 
impiety,"  he  vindicated  his  manner  of  life,  but  would  make  no 
further  defense;  he  was  condemned  by  the  dicastery,  and  drank 
the  fatal  hemlock  (399  B.C.). 


398  GREECE 

395    B.C. 

Many  of  the  best  citizens  of  Athens  thought  that  a  foreign  war 
was  the  best  way  of  rousing  their  fellows  from  civil  bickerings,  and 
Thrasybialus,  the  hero  of  403  B.C.,  was  zealous  to  repay  Thebes  for 
the  assistance  she  had  given  the  exiled  democracy  in  that  year. 
Accordingly,  though  her  navy  was  non-existent  and  her  Long 
Walls  were  still  in  ruins,  Athens  was  induced  to  join  the  Theban 
alliance  and  declare  war  once  more  on  her  old  enemy. 

The  campaign  of  395  B.C.  began  with  an  inroad  by  Lysander 
into  Boeotia.  Expecting  to  be  joined  on  a  fixed  day  by  King 
Pausanias,  he  led  his  Phocians  and  Malians  down  into  the  plain, 
and  attacked  Haliartus.  But  while  he  lay  at  its  gates  the  townsmen 
made  a  sortie,  a  great  Theban  army  came  up  in  his  rear,  and  in  the 
sudden  fray  he  himself  was  slain  and  his  forces  dispersed.  Pau- 
sanias, who  appeared  next  day,  found  the  body  of  the  great  general 
lying  unburied  by  the  wall,  and  was  constrained  to  ask  for  a  truce 
to  perform  the  last  offices  for  the  dead,  and  to  consent  to  evacuate 
Boeotia  if  that  boon  was  granted  him.  For  his  lateness  in  arriv- 
ing and  his  tameness  in  consenting  to  turn  back  without  fighting, 
the  king  was  impeached  the  moment  he  reached  Sparta.  He  fled 
from  trial,  and  was  condemned  in  his  absence,  just  as  his  father, 
Pleistoanax,  had  been  fifty-one  years  before.  His  son,  Ages- 
ipolis,  a  youth  of  seventeen  or  eighteen,  succeeded  to  the  kingly 
power. 

In  Lysander  Sparta  lost  her  ablest  general,  and  the  only  man 
who  could  have  rescued  her  from  internal  decay.  But  his  personal 
ambition  had  always  been  such  a  disturbing  factor  in  Lacedae- 
monian politics  that  the  ephors  felt  more  relief  than  regret  at  his 
fall.  Saved  from  the  fear  of  his  genius,  they  could  go  on  in  their 
old  narrow  ways,  and  work  out  to  the  end  the  doom  which  its  cast- 
iron  constitution  was  preparing  for  Sparta.  The  state  was  already 
in  great  danger ;  it  was  only  a  few  years  before  that  a  general 
rising  of  the  inferior  citizens  and  Helots  against  the  government 
had  been  frustrated  by  the  slaying  of  Cinadon,  who  had  organized 
the  plot.  But,  unwarned  by  conspiracy  within  and  revolt  without, 
the  ephors  went  on  in  the  old  paths,  and  kept  Spartan  policy  in 
its  usual  groove  of  selfishness  and  indifference  to  the  rights  of 
others. 

When  the  result  of  the  battle  of  Haliartus  was  known,  Argos 
and  Corinth  published  their  declaration  of  war,  in  which  not  long 
after  the  Acarnanians,  the  Euboeans,  and  many  of  the  Thessalian 


REVOLT  FROM  SPARTA        399 

394    B.C. 

cities  joined.  The  Spartans  found  themselves  forced  to  fight  for 
their  hegemony  in  Peloponnesus,  as  well  as  for  their  empire  in 
Greece.  Realizing  the  gravity  of  the  crisis,  they  sent  to  Asia  to 
summon  back  Agesilaus  and  his  army,  for  every  available  man 
would  be  v^anted  at  home.  When  the  spring  of  394  B.C.  came 
round,  the  forces  of  Laconia  and  of  those  allies  who  remained 
faithful  were  sent,  under  the  regent  Aristodemus,  to  march  on 
Corinth  and  block  the  way  of  invaders  from  the  north.  The 
army,  however,  arrived  too  late ;  twelve  thousand  Boeotians  and 
Athenians  had  already  crossed  the  Isthmus,  and  had  been  joined 
by  the  levies  of  Corinth  and  Argos.  The  allied  host,  twenty 
thousand  hoplites  with  a  strong  force  of  cavalry  and  light-armed, 
lay  on  the  Corinthian  border,  and  was  about  to  move  southward. 
They  had  been  planning  a  sudden  raid  into  Laconia,  pursuant  to 
the  advice  of  the  Corinthian  Timolaus,  who  bade  them  "  not  to 
strike  at  the  wasps  when  they  are  flying  around,  but  to  run  in 
and  set  fire  to  their  nest."  But  while  they  were  settling  the  de- 
tails of  the  march,  the  Spartan  army  had  already  reached  Sicyon, 
and  was  offering  them  battle.  Aristodemus  had  called  up  the 
levies  of  Arcadia,  Elis,  Achaia,  and  the  small  states  of  the  Argive 
peninsula ;  he  had  nearly  as  many  hoplites  as  the  allies,  and  was 
determined  to  fight.  The  armies  came  into  collision  by  the  brook 
Nemea,  four  miles  westward  from  Corinth.  The  incidents  of  the 
fight  were  not  unlike  those  of  the  last  battle  which  Sparta  had 
fought  in  Peloponnesus.  Now,  as  formerly  at  Mantinea,  the  Lace- 
daemonians themselves  broke  and  trampled  down  the  enemy  op- 
posed to  them,  while  their  allies  fared  badly  and  were  driven  off 
the  field.  Once  more  the  Lacedaemonians  kept  their  ranks  and 
retrieved  the  day,  while  the  victorious  wing  of  their  opponents 
scattered  itself  in  reckless  pursuit.  Thus  it  came  to  pass  that 
though  of  the  Spartans  only  eight  fell,  their  allies  had  lost  eleven 
hundred  men,  while  the  enemy,  slaughtered  up  to  the  very  gates 
of  Corinth,  left  nearly  three  thousand  dead  on  the  field. 

Meanwhile  Agesilaus  had  received  the  orders  of  the  ephors 
to  return  home,  and  had  reluctantly  given  over  his  great  scheme 
for  the  invasion  of  Asia.  Leaving  his  brother-in-law  Peisander 
in  charge  of  the  fleet,  and  an  officer  named  Euxenus  with  four 
thousand  men  to  maintain  the  war  against  Tithraustes,  he  as- 
sembled his  army  on  the  Hellespont,  driven  out  of  Asia,  as  he 
bitterly  complained,  not  by  force  of  arms,  but  by  the  ten  thousand 


400  GREECE 

394  B.C. 

golden  bowmen  ^  which  the  satrap  had  sent  across  to  Thebes  and 
Argos.  Crossing  the  straits,  he  led  his  men  homewards  by  the 
long  coast-road  through  Thrace  and  Macedonia.  The  force  he 
took  with  him  was  strong,  confident,  and  well  disciplined ;  the 
veteran  mercenaries  who  had  served  under  Cyrus,  and  the  Pelo- 
ponnesians  who  had  followed  Agesilaus  to  Asia,  were  equally 
enthusiastic  for  their  leader.  Forcing  his  way  through  hostile 
Thessaly,  in  spite  of  the  hordes  of  cavalry  which  hung  around 
him,  Agesilaus  reached  the  friendly  land  of  Phocis,  about  a  month 
after  the  battle  of  Corinth  had  been  fought.  The  Phocians  and 
the  discontented  Boeotians  of  Orchomenus  joined  him,  and  he 
then  advanced  along  the  valley  of  the  Cephissus.  At  Coronea, 
where  the  Boeotian  plain  narrows  down  between  the  hills  of  Helicon 
and  the  marshes  of  Copai's,  he  found  the  enemy  barring  his  further 
progress.  In  spite  of  their  late  defeat,  the  Thebans  were  bent  on 
fighting;  they  had  sent  in  haste  for  their  Argive  and  Athenian 
allies,  and  mustered  in  strength  beneath  the  walls  of  Coronea. 

Here  was  fought  the  most  desperate  action  that  Greece  had 
seen  since  Thermopylae.  The  Theban  troops,  who  charged — as  at 
Delium — in  a  dense  column  on  the  right  of  the  allied  army,  broke 
the  ranks  of  their  separatist  countrymen  of  Orchomenus ;  but  on  all 
other  points  of  the  line  Agesilaus  won  the  day.  The  king  then 
threw  himself  between  the  victorious  Thebans  and  their  line  of 
retreat;  but  the  enemy  merely  closed  their  ranks,  and  pushed  for- 
ward into  the  midst  of  the  Spartan  host,  determined  to  force  their 
way  through.  Their  column  wedged  itself  into  the  hostile  line, 
but  could  not  break  it.  The  fight  stood  still ;  the  front  ranks  on 
either  side  went  down  to  a  man,  and  the  press  grew  so  close  that 
the  combatants  had  to  drop  their  spears  and  fight  on  with  their 
daggers.  Agesilaus  himself  was  thrown  down  and  well-nigh 
trampled  to  death  before  his  body-guard  could  draw  him  out  from 
among  the  corpses.  At  last,  after  a  struggle  of  a  length  unpre- 
cedented in  Greek  battles,  the  survnvors  of  the  Theban  column 
forced  their  way  through  the  Spartan  line  and  reached  the  slopes  of 
Helicon.  Agesilaus  had  the  glory  of  a  victory — as  the  Thebans 
confessed  by  demanding  the  usual  truce  for  the  burial  of  the  dead — 
but  his  men  had  suffered  as  severely  as  the  enemy,  and  instead  of 
pushing  on  into  Boeotia  he  turned  back  to  Delphi.  There  he  offered 
Apollo  the  tithe  of  his  Asiatic  spoils,  a  sum  of  no  less  than  a  hun- 
1  The  Persian  gold  Daric  bore  the  figure  of  the  Great  King  holding  a  bow. 


REVOLT  FROM  SPARTA        401 

394  B.C. 

dred  talents  ($120,000),  and  then  crossed  over  to  Peloponnesus  by 
sea. 

On  the  evening  before  the  battle  of  Coronea  Agesilaus  had 
received  from  Asia  a  piece  of  intelligence  which  he  carefully  con- 
cealed from  his  army.  It  was  to  the  effect  that  his  brother-in-law 
Peisander  had  been  defeated  and  slain  in  a  sea-fight  off  Cnidus, 
and  that  the  cities  of  Ionia  and  Caria  were  one  after  the  other 
revolting  against  Sparta. 

After  Agesilaus  had  left  Asia,  the  Persian  satraps  had  re- 
covered their  confidence,  and  determined  to  assume  the  offensive. 
They  possessed  a  considerable  squadron  of  Phoenician  vessels, 
which  the  king  had  placed  under  the  command  of  the  Athenian 
Conon,  who  had  been  an  exile  in  Cyprus  since  the  disaster  of  Aegos- 
potami,  Pharnabazus  went  on  board  ship — he  was  the  first 
satrap  who  had  taken  to  the  sea  for  fifty  years — and  set  forth 
with  Conon  to  meet  the  Spartan  fleet.  They  came  on  Pei- 
sander off  Cnidus,  and  found  him  ready  to  fight,  for  though  an 
inexperienced  seaman  he  had  all  the  courage  of  the  true  Lacedae- 
monian. The  Persians  considerably  outnumbered  the  enemy,  and 
obtained  an  easy  victory,  for  the  Ionian  captains  in  the  Spartan 
fleet,  sick  of  harmosts  and  war-taxes,  made  no  serious  resistance. 
They  fled  at  the  first  shock,  and  left  their  admiral  to  his  fate. 
Peisander  fell,  and  half  his  galleys  were  sunk  or  taken. 

Pharnabazus  and  Conon  then  sailed  up  the  coast  of  Caria  and 
Ionia,  summoning  the  Greek  cities  to  cast  off  the  Spartan  yoke  and 
assert  their  autonomy.  Town  after  town — Cos,  Ephesus,  Samos, 
Chios,  Mitylene — expelled  its  harmost  and  threw  open  its  gates. 
Only  Abydos,  where  the  able  Dercyllidas  had  collected  the  wrecks 
of  many  Spartan  garrisons,  held  out  against  the  victorious  admirals. 
By  the  close  of  394  B.C.  it  was  the  sole  remaining  token  of  all  the 
conquests  of  Lysander  and  Agesilaus,  and  the  Spartan  empire  in 
Asia  was  at  an  end. 

The  war  in  Greece  now  resolved  itself  into  a  series  of  bicker- 
ings for  the  possession  of  the  roads  across  the  Isthmus.  The  Corin- 
thians, supported  by  occasional  assistance  from  Athens  and  Argos, 
endeavored  to  hold  the  narrow  line — four  miles  broad  from  sea  to 
sea — between  Cenchreae  and  Lechaeum.  The  Lacedaemonians, 
from  their  base  at  Sicyon,  kept  sending  out  expeditions  to  burst 
through  and  to  seize  posts  in  the  rear  of  Corinth,  from  which  a 
blockade  of  the  city  would  be  possible.    But  though  they  broke  down 


402  GREECE 

393   B.C. 

the  "  Long  Walls  "  which  connected  Corinth  with  the  sea,  harried 
the  whole  Corinthian  territory  from  end  to  end,  and  inflicted  end- 
less misery  upon  its  inhabitants,  they  made  little  or  no  progress 
towards  bringing  the  war  to  an  end.  The  only  thoroughly  success- 
ful operation  which  they  carried  out  in  the  whole  war  was  directed 
at  an  outlying  member  of  the  Theban  alliance,  and  had  no  influence 
on  the  main  course  of  events.  It  was  an  expedition  of  Agesilaus 
into  Acarnania,  by  which  the  tribes  of  that  country  were  forced 
into  submission,  and  became  allies  of  Sparta  (391  B.C.). 

Meanwhile  the  pauses  in  the  progress  of  the  war  had  brought 
great  gain  to  at  least  one  power.  In  the  spring  of  393  B.C.  Conon 
and  Pharnabazus  had  brought  across  the  Aegean  a  squadron  of 
Phoenician  and  Ionian  ships;  after  harrying  the  coast  of  Laconia 
they  came  into  the  Gulf  of  Aegina.  As  there  was  no  Spartan  fleet 
to  fight,  Conon  obtained  from  the  satrap  permission  to  employ  the 
seamen  of  his  squadron  and  a  considerable  sum  of  money  in  aiding 
the  Athenians  to  rebuild  the  fortifications  of  Peiraeus  and  the 
"  Long  Walls,"  which  had  remained  in  ruins  since  Lysander 
breached  them  in  404  b.c.  Three  or  four  months'  hard  labor  suf- 
ficed for  their  reconstruction,  and  when  this  was  accomplished  the 
Athenians  set  to  work  to  build  warships  in  the  long-deserted  slips 
of  their  ruined  arsenal.  By  the  next  year  we  find  them  able  to  send 
out  a  modest  squadron  of  ten  vessels,  the  first  that  had  sailed  out 
of  Peiraeus  for  twelve  years.  Two  years  later  they  could  put 
Thrasybijlus  in  command  of  forty,  a  force  large  enough  to  have 
some  influence  on  the  course  of  the  war. 

It  was  not  destined  that  the  struggle — the  "  Corinthian  war," 
as  men  called  it,  because  its  operations  centered  around  the  walls 
of  Corinth — should  be  brought  to  an  end  by  any  events  in  Europe. 
Neither  party  showed  any  signs  of  reducing  its  enemy,  and  the 
petty  warfare  might  apparently  have  gone  on  forever.  The  only 
incident  worth  recording  in  these  dreary  years  was  one  which  had 
some  importance  in  the  history  of  Greek  military  art,  but  no  influ- 
ence on  the  course  of  Greek  politics.  The  Athenian  general,  Iphic- 
rates,  had  applied  himself  to  perfect  the  equipment  and  tactics 
of  the  light-troops  called  pcltasts.  He  had  endeavored  to  assimi- 
late them  to  the  hoplite,  without  loading  them  with  the  heavy  armor 
which  made  quick  movement  impossible  to  the  troops  of  the  line. 
Though  he  furnished  them  with  corselets  of  quilted  linen,  and  small 
shields,  instead  of  metal  breastplates  and  large  oval  bucklers,  he 


REVOLT  FROM  SPARTA        403 

392   B.C. 

gave  them  a  pike  and  sword  even  longer  and  stronger  than  those 
of  the  hopHte.  After  performing  some  minor  exploits  with  these 
troops  against  the  heavy  infantry  of  Phlius  and  Mantinea,  Iphic- 
rates  ventured  to  measure  them  against  a  body  of  Spartans. 

He  caught  a  mora  (battalion),  four  hundred  strong,  which 
had  been  serving  on  escort  duty,  as  it  defiled  along  the  shore  below 
the  walls  of  Corinth,  and  beset  it  on  all  sides  with  his  peltasts. 
When  the  Spartans  charged,  his  men  gave  way;  but  they  returned 
when  the  enemy's  impetus  was  exhausted,  hung  around  him, 
galled  him  with  missiles,  and  finally  brought  him  to  a  standstill. 
Harassed  and  exhausted,  much  as  their  countrymen  at  Sphacteria 
had  been  thirty-five  years  before,  the  Lacedaemonians  halted  to 
defend  themselves  on  an  isolated  hillock,  where  they  were  first 
worried  by  the  peltasts,  and  then  broken  by  a  body  of  Athenian 
hoplites  which  came  up  from  Corinth.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  of 
them  fell ;  the  remainder  escaped  to  Lechaeum.  Thus  a  whole  Spar- 
tan battalion  had  been  not  merely  slain  off — such  things  as  that  had 
happened  before — but  driven  to  headlong  flight  by  the  despised  mer- 
cenaries of  Iphicrates.  This  was  a  fact  which  made  the  strongest 
impression  on  the  mind  of  Greece.  It  induced  every  state  to  pay 
more  attention  for  the  future  to  its  light-armed  troops,  who  had 
previously  been  deemed  worthy  of  little  notice;  it  won  for  Iphic- 
rates a  reputation  which  he  hardly  deserved,  and  it  led  to  a  some- 
what undue  depreciation  of  Spartan  courage.  The  real  moral,  that 
hoplites  should  never  be  sent  out  alone,  but  always  accompanied 
by  a  due  proportion  of  light-armed  troops,  seems  to  have  escaped 
the  notice  of  the  contemporary  observer.  Twenty  cases  with  the 
same  moral  could  be  quoted  in  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries,^  yet 
no  general  seems  to  have  grasped  their  meaning  before  Alexander 
the  Great. 

While  the  war  had  come  to  a  standstill  in  Europe,  really  de- 
cisive events  were  taking  place  across  the  Aegean.  The  Lacedae- 
monians had  lost  all  their  possessions  in  Asia,  except  Abydos,  and 
were  therefore  in  a  position  to  resume  their  old  alliance  with  Persia; 
having  none  of  the  Great  King's  ancient  possessions  any  longer  in 
their  hands,  they  could  approach  him  without  being  required  to  part 
with  anything.  In  392  B.C.  an  officer  named  Antalcidas  was  dis- 
patched to  Sardis,  and  obtained  a  hearing  from  Tiribazus,  who  had 
succeeded  Tithraustes  as  satrap  in  Lydia.  He  pointed  out  that  the 
2  Cf.  especially  the  disaster  of  Demosthenes  in  Aetolia 


404  GREECE 

390-388  B.C. 

war  had  ceased  to  bring  the  Great  King  profit,  and  that  the  Persian 
fleet  under  Conon  was  now  being  used,  not  to  serve  Persian 
interests,  but  merely  to  build  up  again  the  power  of  Athens,  whose 
interests  must  infallibly  bring  her  ere  long  into  collision  with  the 
satraps.  Tiribazus  was  convinced  by  these  arguments ;  he  recalled 
Conon,  threw  him  into  prison  ^  for  misusing  the  forces  intrusted  to 
him,  and  went  up  to  Susa  to  persuade  King  Artaxerxes  to  make 
peace  with  Sparta. 

But  negotiations  with  an  Oriental  power  are  always  lengthy, 
and  while  the  attitude  of  the  Persian  court  was  still  doubtful,  the 
ephors  raised  a  new  army  and  fleet  and  sent  them  across  the  Aegean. 
This  force  seized  Ephesus,  and  once  more  gave  Sparta  a  foothold 
in  Ionia ;  shortly  after  an  insurrection  in  Lesbos  threw  all  the  cities 
of  that  great  island,  save  Mitylene,  into  Lacedaemonian  hands 
(390  B.C.). 

By  this  time  the  Athenians  had  finished  building  their  new 
navy,  and  forty  ships  under  Thrasybulus  arrived  in  Asiatic  waters 
to  check  the  restoration  of  Spartan  supremacy  east  of  the  Aegean. 
Thrasybulus  performed  no  great  miltary  service,  but  he  succeeded 
in  uniting  the  Byzantines,  Rhodians,  and  Chalcedonians  in  a  naval 
league  with  Athens — a  union  which  hopeful  men  trusted  might 
prove  the  commencement  of  a  new  Delian  League.  Before  the  year 
was  ended,  however,  he  was  slain  by  the  people  of  Aspendus,  on 
whose  land  he  had  been  levying  a  forced  contribution. 

For  more  than  a  year  a  sporadic  naval  warfare  continued  to 
rage  over  the  whole  Aegean,  from  Aegina  to  Ephesus,  and  from 
Abydos  to  Rhodes.  But  here,  too,  just  as  in  the  land  war  in  Greece, 
the  adversaries  seemed  to  have  come  to  a  standstill.  At  last,  in 
the  spring  of  388  b.c.^  Tiribazus  returned  from  Susa — he  had  been 
absent  no  less  than  three  years — with  full  permission  from  the 
Great  King  to  carry  out  his  philo-Spartan  policy.  He  at  once 
made  an  alliance  with  Antalcidas,  who  had  been  his  original  ad- 
viser, and  placed  the  Persian  fleet  at  the  disposition  of  the  Lace- 
daemonian. Uniting  it  to  his  own,  Antalcidas  swept  the  Aegean 
from  north  to  south,  chased  the  Athenian  squadron  back  to  Pei- 
raeus,  and  showed  himself  undisputed  master  of  the  seas. 

But  Sparta  had  no  longer  any  desire  to  proceed  with  the  war ; 
she  was  conscious  that  her  momentary  advantage  had  been  gained 
not  by  her  own  strength,  but  by  that  of  Persia,  and  was  anxious  to 
3  Conon  escaped  from  prison,  but  died  not  long  after. 


REVOLT  FROM  SPARTA        405 

387  B.C. 

seize  a  favorable  opportunity  to  put  an  end  to  hostilities.  In  the 
spring  of  387  B.C.  Tiribazus  invited  all  the  belligerents  to  send 
deputies  to  a  peace  congress  at  Sardis.  All  accepted,  for  none  of 
them  had  any  great  wish  to  protract  the  war.  Athens  was  fright- 
ened by  the  prospect  of  the  loss  of  her  newly  restored  trade  and  the 
blockade  of  her  ports ;  Corinth  had  been  nearly  ruined  by  the  harry- 
ing of  her  territory;  Argos  had  gained  nothing  by  a  long-pro- 
tracted struggle;  Thebes  thought  that  she  had  made  an  end  of 
Spartan  interference  in  Boeotia,  the  main  object  of  her  declaration 
of  war.  When  the  envoys  arrived,  Tiribazus  laid  before  them  a 
declaration  which  he  had  drawn  up  in  conjunction  with  Antalcidas. 
The  document  ran  as  follows :  "  King  Artaxerxes  deems  it  just 
that  the  cities  in  Asia  should  belong  to  him,  and  of  the  islands 
Clazomenae  ^  and  Cyprus ;  the  other  Greek  cities,  both  small  and 
great,  are  to  be  independent ;  only  Lemnos,  Imbros,  and  Scyros  are, 
as  of  old,  to  belong  to  the  Athenians.  Whatsoever  states  shall  not 
accept  this  peace,  upon  them  I  shall,  in  conjunction  with  those  who 
accept  it,  make  war  by  land  and  by  sea,  with  ships  and  with  money." 
By  agreeing  to  these  terms,  Sparta  gave  up  all  pretense  of 
posing  as  the  defender  of  Hellas  against  the  barbarian.  She  sur- 
rendered the  cities  of  Asia  to  the  Great  King,  because  she  could  no 
longer  help  to  keep  them  for  herself.  Resigning  herself  to  the 
loss  of  her  power  east  of  the  Aegean,  she  fell  back  on  the  old 
hegemony  of  Peloponnesus,  which  had  been  hers  from  time  im- 
memorial. This  hegemony  she  felt  herself  able  to  maintain,  but 
for  its  full  establishment  an  interval  of  peace  was  necessary.  If 
the  peace  could  be  bought  only  by  sacrificing  the  lonians  to  Persia, 
they  must  be  sacrificed;  since  their  rebellion  in  394  b.c.  Sparta  felt 
no  atom  of  interest  in  their  fate — a  disinterested  regard  for  the  wel- 
fare of  Hellas  was  never  her  foible.  The  threat  of  having  to  face 
Persia  and  Sparta  combined  was  too  much  for  the  confederates. 
When  their  envoys  reported  to  them  the  terms  offered  by  Tiribazus, 
one  after  another  consented  to  accept  them.  Thebes  held  out  longest, 
for  her  envoys  refused  for  some  time  to  subscribe  to  the  treaty, 
unless  they  might  sign  in  the  name  of  the  whole  Boeotian  League. 
The  Spartans  refused  to  allow  this,  alleging  the  terms  of  the  treaty, 
which  said  that  "  all  Greek  cities,  both  small  and  great,  should  be 

*  The  old  town  of  Clazomenae  was  on  the  mainland,  but  a  citadel  and  new 
quarter  had  been  built  on  an  island  connected  ]py  a  causeway  with  the  shore. 
Hence  Tiribazus  could  call  it  an  island. 


406  GREECE 

387  B.C. 

independent  " — a  clause  which  they  read  into  a  prohibition  of  the 
hegemony  of  Thebes  in  Boeotia.  But  finding  that  all  their  allies 
had  left  them,  and  frightened  by  the  threats  of  Agesilaus,  who 
declared  his  intention  of  at  once  invading  Boeotia,  the  Thebans 
signed  the  inglorious  document. 

Thus  ended  the  "  Corinthian  war,"  a  struggle  which  wrought 
damage  to  Hellas  at  large — for  it  ended  in  the  loss  of  her  Ionic 
members — without  profiting  any  one  of  the  states  which  had  en- 
gaged in  it.  Sparta  had  lost  her  naval  supremacy  and  her  mastery 
of  the  Aegean,  but  her  adversaries  had  not  gained  by  her  disasters. 
The  only  power  which  had  come  happily  out  of  the  business  was 
Persia,  who  had  at  last  recovered  the  Ionian  cities,  lost  so  long  ago 
as  480-470  B.C.,  and  now  found  herself  once  more  mistress  of  the 
Aegean.  But  luckily  for  Greece  King  Artaxerxes  was  a  most  un- 
enterprising monarch,  and  never  cared  to  push  to  its  end  the  oppor- 
tunity which  was  now  granted  him. 

Antalcidas  incurred  the  discredit  of  being  held  responsible  for 
the  treaty,  and  from  him  it  took  its  name,  "  the  Peace  of  Antal- 
cidas." Another  but  a  more  inglorious  Lysander,  he  won  the  ap- 
proval of  his  own  countrymen,  and  the  curses  of  all  Greece  besides, 
for  having  yoked  Sparta  to  the  barbarian,  and  secured  her  triumph 
by  sacrificing  Greek  cities  by  the  score.  His  ignominy  was  shared 
by  the  ephors;  Agesilaus  alone,  who  advocated  the  continuance  of 
the  war,  had  no  part  in  it.  But  even  Agesilaus  looked  upon  the 
peace  as  profitable  to  the  country.  When  it  was  said  in  his  hearing 
that  "  the  Lacedaemonians  had  played  into  the  hands  of  the 
Medes,"  he  replied,  "  No ;  say  rather  that  the  Medes  are  playing 
into  the  hands  of  the  Lacedaemonians."  But  whether  the  Medes 
Laconized  or  the  Lacedaemonians  Medized,  Ephesus  and  Miletus 
and  all  their  sister-towns  were  struck  out  of  the  list  of  free  Hellenic 
communities,  and  incorporated  once  more  in  a  Persian  satrapy. 


Chapter   XXXVII 

THE  GREEKS  OF  THE  WEST,  413-338  B.C. 

WHEN  the  great  expedition  of  Nicias  and  Demosthenes 
had  been  shattered  against  the  walls  of  Syracuse  it 
was  universally  believed  that  a  new  period  of  splendor 
and  prosperity  was  opening  for  the  cities  of  Sicily.  The  unpro- 
voked attack  of  Athens  on  their  liberties  had  shown  them  the 
danger  of  civil  strife,  had  taught  them  to  combine,  and  had  proved 
that  when  combined  they  were  irresistible.  Selinus,  Himera,  Gela, 
and  most  of  the  other  Siceliot  towns  had  contributed  their  contin- 
gents to  the  Syracusan  army,  and  shared  in  the  glory  of  the  great 
victory.  Syracuse,  who  had  borne  the  brunt  of  the  attack,  had 
learned  that,  strong  though  she  was,  she  was  not  strong  enough 
to  save  herself  without  the  aid  of  her  lesser  neighbors.  Bound  to- 
gether by  their  late  comradeship  in  arms,  and  warned  by  the 
dangers  they  had  passed  through,  it  might  have  been  expected 
that  the  Siceliots  would  settle  down  to  a  life  of  peace  and  progress. 

This  was  not  to  be;  within  four  years  after  the  execution  of 
Nicias,  Sicily  was  to  undergo  a  series  of  disasters  which  maimed 
her  strength  and  cut  short  her  energies  forever.  Half  her  cities 
were  to  be  destroyed  by  the  stranger,  the  remainder  stripped  of 
their  liberty,  and  handed  over  to  a  tyrant  whose  deeds  recalled  the 
worst  days  of  the  rule  of  Gelo  and  Hiero. 

When  the  rejoicings  which  followed  the  overthrow  of  the 
Athenian  armament  had  ceased,  two  schemes  engrossed  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Syracusans  and  their  allies.  To  punish  Athens  for  her 
interference  in  the  affairs  of  the  West,  a  Siceliot  fleet  should  sail 
eastward  and  carry  the  war  into  the  waters  of  the  Aegean.  Ac- 
cordingly two  squadrons  were  sent  forth,  in  412  and  411  b.c,  under 
Hermocrates,  the  Syracusan  general  who  had  most  distinguished 
himself  during  the  siege.  These  vessels,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
shared  in  the  good  and  evil  fortune  of  the  Spartan  armaments  of 
Chalcideus  and  Mindarus. 

Even  stronger  than  the  desire  for  chastising  Athens  was  the 
determination  of  the  Siceliots  to  punish  those  traitor-cities  among 

407 


408  GREECE 

410  B.C. 

themselves  who  had  espoused  the  Athenian  cause.  Syracuse  under- 
took the  chastisement  of  her  old  enemies  of  Naxos  and  Catana; 
their  fields  were  ravaged,  and  their  walls  beleaguered,  yet  for  two 
years  they  contrived  to  hold  out.  Selinus  meanwhile  fell  on  the 
Segestans,  and  endeavored  to  wreak  her  vengeance  on  the  alien 
city  which  had  so  long  maintained  herself  alone  among  the  Greek 
communities.  But  Segesta  seemed  fated  to  bring  evil  after  evil 
upon  Sicily.  With  ruin  impending  upon  her  now  as  in  417  B.C., 
she  determined  to  call  in  another  ally.  Where  the  Athenian  had 
failed  the  Carthaginian  might  succeed.  Accordingly  the  Segestans 
sent  message  after  message  to  Africa,  to  interest  in  their  cause  the 
great  Phoenician  city,  whose  harbor  looked  forth  on  the  western 
shore  of  Sicily. 

The  Carthaginians  had  avoided  meddling  with  their  Hellenic 
neighbors  since  the  awful  disaster  which  their  army  had  suffered 
before  the  walls  of  Himera  just  seventy  years  ago.  But  now 
they  were  in  a  warlike  mood ;  the  disaster  of  the  Athenians 
at  Syracuse  had  roused  in  them  fear  of  the  growing  might  of 
Syracuse,  and  their  counsels  were  dominated  at  the  moment  by 
Hannibal,  an  ambitious  general  who  had  a  grudge  against  the 
Siceliots.  He  was  the  grandson  of  that  Hamilkar  who  had  fallen  at 
Himera  in  480  B.C.,  and  had  sworn  to  avenge  the  fate  of  his  ances- 
tor. In  410  B.C.  he  was  one  of  the  two  suffetes,  or  supreme  magis- 
trates, of  Carthage,  and  he  easily  persuaded  his  countrymen  to  listen 
to  the  appeal  of  Segesta,  and  to  entrust  him  with  an  army  destined 
for  the  invasion  of  Sicily. 

Accordingly,  in  the  summer  of  410  B.C.  a  Carthaginian 
auxiliary  force  landed  at  Segesta  and  drove  off  the  Selinuntines 
from  the  environs  of  the  town.  But  this  was  only  the  prelude  to 
the  great  invasion.  In  the  following  spring  Hannibal  crossed  over 
from  Africa  with  one  of  those  vast  and  miscellaneous  mercenary 
hosts  which  Carthage  was  accustomed  to  gather  when  she  went  to 
war.  Hannibal  was  not  a  general  of  the  school  of  Nicias ;  he  did 
not  falter  for  a  moment  in  his  operations,  but  marched  straight  on 
Selinus  almost  before  his  landing  was  known.  The  battering-ram 
was  set  to  work  on  a  score  of  points  at  once,  breaches  were  ere  long 
broken  in  the  walls,  and  a  hundred  thousand  wild  Libyans,  Span- 
iards, and  Gauls  mounted  to  the  assault.  For  nine  days  the 
Selinuntines  held  the  breaches,  and  sent  messenger  after  messenger 
to  hurry  on  the  forces  of  Syracuse  and  Acragas,  wliose  aid  had 


THE    WEST  409 

408  B.C. 

been  promised  them.  On  the  tenth  day  the  defense  broke  down,  the 
enemy  poured  into  the  town,  and  a  horrible  massacre  took  place. 
The  barbarians  filled  the  streets  with  sixteen  thousand  corpses, 
drove  off  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants  as  captives,  and  swept  away 
everything  in  the  city  that  was  not  too  hot  or  too  heavy  to  be  moved. 

The  Siceliot  army,  which  had  gathered  at  Acragas  to  march  to 
the  relief  of  Selinus,  was  thunderstruck.  In  ten  days  a  great  and 
well-fortified  city  had  been  struck  out  of  the  roll  of  Greek  com.- 
munities.  The  generals  were  scared.  Instead  of  taking  the  field  to 
oppose  Hannibal,  they  dismissed  their  army  and  sent  to  ask  for 
terms  of  peace.  But  the  Carthaginian  had  not  yet  executed  half  his 
purpose.  Before  the  Siceliots  had  guessed  his  design,  he  had 
marched  across  the  island  and  laid  siege  to  Himera.  The  Himer- 
aeans,  seeing  the  fate  of  Selinus  impending  over  them,  cried  aloud 
for  instant  succor.  But  Hannibal  w^as  so  prompt  that  no  more  than 
four  thousand  Syracusan  troops  had  time  to  reach  the  city.  The 
Greeks  strove  to  keep  back  the  enemy  by  a  vigorous  sally,  but  it 
failed,  and  the  place  in  a  few  days  became  untenable.  The  non- 
combatants  were  hurried  away  by  sea ;  the  Syracusans  escaped  by 
land,  but  ere  the  town  was  half  evacuated  the  besiegers  burst  in. 
Hannibal  leveled  the  whole  place — walls,  temples,  and  houses — 
to  the  ground,  and  executed  three  thousand  captive  hoplites  on  the 
spot  where  his  grandfather  had  been  slain  in  480  B.C.,  as  a  solemn 
offering  to  the  gods  of  Carthage. 

Within  three  months  after  his  landing  Hannibal  sailed  back 
to  Carthage,  his  ships  laden  deep  with  captives  and  spoil,  leaving 
behind  him  two  heaps  of  ruins  where  once  had  stood  the  two 
westernmost  Hellenic  cities  of  Sicily.  His  return  was  anxiously 
looked  for  in  the  next  spring,  but  for  reasons  to  us  unknown  it  was 
delayed.  The  Siceliots,  free  for  a  short  space  from  the  impending 
ruin,  did  not  employ  their  time  in  getting  ready  to  resist  the  next 
wave  of  invasion.  They  fell  to  mutual  recriminations  over  the 
causes  of  their  military  failures  in  the  preceding  year.  At  Syracuse 
the  factions  actually  came  to  blows.  Hermocrates,  the  hero  of  the 
Athenian  siege,  had  been  sent  into  exile,  but  he  had  a  large  follow- 
ing in  the  city,  and  was  able  to  make  attempt  after  attempt  to  force 
his  way  back,  and  to  overthrow  the  faction  in  power.  In  the  end 
of  408  B.C.  he  was  admitted  within  the  gates  by  treachery,  but  in  the 
street-fight  that  ensued  he  was  slain,  and  his  followers  were  forced 
out  of  the  half-won  city. 


410  GREECE 

406  B.C. 

The  mantle  of  Hermocrates  fell  on  one  of  his  partisans,  a 
young  Syracusan  named  Dionysius.  He  was  of  mean  birth,  and 
owned  no  family  wealth  or  influence ;  but  he  was  a  man  of  mark, 
not  merely  a  gallant  soldier,  but  a  ready  speaker,  and  even  a  poet 
of  some  note.  The  defeated  faction  placed  him  at  its  head,  but 
instead  of  continuing  the  open  war,  Dionysius  prevailed  on  them  to 
lay  down  their  arms  and  bide  their  time. 

In  the  spring  of  406  B.C.  the  Siceliots  heard  to  their  dismay 
that  the  impending  storm  was  about  to  break  upon  their  heads. 
Hannibal,  with  an  even  larger  army  than  he  had  led  in  his  first 
campaign,  was  making  ready  to  land  upon  their  shores.  This  time 
they  were  somewhat  better  prepared  than  in  409  b.c.^  and  when  the 
Carthaginian  marched  against  Acragas,  the  second  city  of  the  island, 
he  found  it  defended  by  a  large  confederate  army  of  thirty-five 
thousand  men  drawn  from  every  state  in  Sicily.  For  seven  months 
the  war  stood  still  beneath  the  ramparts  of  Acragas,  and  battle  after 
battle  was  fought  on  its  sloping  uplands.  The  Greeks  were  ill 
handled  by  their  generals;  the  Carthaginians  were  held  back  by  a 
plague  which  broke  out  in  their  foul  and  crowded  camp  and  car- 
ried off  thousands,  including  their  commander  Hannibal  himself. 
Things  were  at  a  deadlock  till  the  winter,  when  the  invaders,  now 
under  the  command  of  an  ofiicer  named  Himilco,  succeeded  in  cut- 
ting off  the  food-supply  of  the  Siceliots.  This  brought  about  the 
evacuation  of  the  town :  the  whole  population,  a  great  crowd  of  two 
hundred  thousand  persons,  stole  away  by  night,  while  the  army 
protected  their  retreat.  The  place,  with  all  its  wealth  that  was  not 
portable,  fell  into  the  hands  of  Himilco.  The  exiled  Acragantines 
scattered  themselves  all  over  Sicily,  the  main  body  settling  down  on 
the  deserted  site  of  Leontini,  which  was  made  over  to  them  by  a 
vote  of  the  Syracusan  assembly. 

When  the  Syracusan  generals  led  home  their  contingent  from 
Acragas,  they  were  assailed  with  a  storm  of  reproaches  for  their 
mismanagement.  The  attack  was  headed  by  Dionysius  and  the 
other  surviving  chiefs  of  the  faction  of  Hermocrates,  who  now  saw 
that  their  time  was  arrived.  Scared  by  the  near  approach  of  the 
Carthaginians,  the  Syracusan  assembly  deposed  their  officers,  and 
elected  in  their  stead  Dionysius  and  a  wholly  new  board.  The 
one  faction  having  failed  to  conduct  the  war  with  success,  they 
threw  themselves  into  the  hands  of  the  other.  But  Dionysius  had 
in  his  mind  not  so  much  the  repulse  of  Himilco  as  the  seizure  of 


THE    WEST  411 

406  B.C. 

supreme  power  at  Syracuse.  His  conduct  during  the  next  year 
has  many  points  of  similarity  to  that  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte  in  a 
similar  case.  Under  the  pretense  of  strengthening  the  military 
force  of  the  city,  he  hired  many  hundred  mercenaries,  whom  he 
attached  to  his  own  person;  then  he  induced  the  assembly  to  vote 
him  full  authority  over  his  colleagues,  so  that  he  became  practically 
dictator.  The  final  step  was  taken  soon  after ;  an  alarm  was  raised 
that  his  life  was  in  danger  from  assassins;  an  illegal  and  informal 
meeting  of  the  assembly  was  held,  far  outside  the  walls  of  the  city, 
and  packed  with  the  partisans  of  Dionysius.  They  voted  their 
leader  a  bodyguard  of  a  thousand  men,  and  prolonged  his  po^ver 
for  an  indefinite  period.  Syracuse  now  found  herself  in  the  hands 
of  a  tyrant,  though  Dionysius  disclaimed  the  title,  and  made  great 
professions  of  his  attachment  to  the  cause  of  democracy.  The 
Syracusans  acquiesced  for  the  moment  in  the  loss  of  their  liberty, 
because  they  felt  that  a  strong  hand  was  needed  to  direct  the  war 
against  the  oncoming  Carthaginian  army.  Himilco  was  already 
thundering  at  the  gates  of  Gela,  whose  territory  was  actually  con- 
terminous with  that  of  Syracuse,  and  in  a  few  months  might  present 
himself  before  the  walls  of  their  own  city. 

The  tyranny  of  Dionysius  lasted  for  no  less  than  thirty-eight 
years — a  period  of  storm  and  convulsion,  civil  strife  and  foreign 
war — it  brought  countless  evils  on  Sicily,  but  on  the  whole  it  served 
its  purpose.  After  long  struggles  the  tyrant  brought  the  Carthagin- 
ians to  a  standstill,  and  at  his  death  left  Acragas  and  all  the  other 
towns  which  had  fallen  to  the  enemy,  save  Selinus  and  Himera, 
once  more  in  Hellenic  hands.  Dionysius  was  neither  to  be  counted 
among  the  worst  nor  among  the  best  of  tyrants.  He  often  showed 
unexpected  clemency  to  a  vanquished  foe;  he  was  not  personally 
violent,  intemperate,  lustful,  or  avaricious ;  he  took  good  care  of  all 
who  served  him  well,  and  wrought  much  for  Syracuse  as  well  as 
for  himself.  He  was  not  insensible  to  gratitude,  or  incapable  of 
personal  affection.  Himself  an  author  of  some  merit,  the  writer 
of  tragedies  which  won  the  first  prize  at  the  Athenian  Dionysiac 
festival,  he  loved  to  surround  himself  with  literary  men.  As  a 
builder,  he  was  almost  equal  to  Pericles;  as  a  general,  he  inaugu- 
rated a  new  epoch  in  the  Hellenic  art  of  war. 

But  all  these  qualities  were  spoiled  by  the  countervailing  vices 
of  Dionysius.  His  cool  and  steadfast  determination  to  hold  on  to 
his  tyranny  led  him  again  and  again  through  seas  of  blood.     The 


412  GREECE 

405   B.C. 

citizens  of  Syracuse  who  suffered  death  at  his  hands  were  numbered 
by  thousands  rather  than  by  hundreds.  The  financial  exigencies 
of  his  wars  drove  him  to  grinding  extortion;  he  is  said  to  have 
taxed  the  Syracusans  every  year  to  the  extent  of  one-fifth  of  their 
property,  and  his  confiscations  were  enormous.  He  was  capable  of 
outbursts  of  cruelty  which  shocked  the  Hellenic  mind — flogging 
prisoners  to  death,  crucifying  them,  or  fixing  them  to  his  military 
engines.  His  callousness  to  religious  sentiment  provoked  even 
greater  wrath :  he  never  shrank  from  plundering  or  burning  a 
temple,  and  on  one  occasion  sold  to  his  enemies,  the  Carthaginians, 
the  most  hallowed  treasures  of  the  greatest  shrine  of  Italy.  Above 
all,  his  suspicions  made  him  hated.  Driven  into  a  state  of  appre- 
hension by  continual  plots  and  outbreaks,  he  came  to  trust  no  man. 
His  spies  were  always  at  work,  scenting  out  imaginary  conspiracies ; 
his  dungeons  always  full  of  citizens  imprisoned  on  suspicion.  He 
grew  so  wary  that  he  never  stirred  abroad  without  a  mercenary 
guard;  he  had  every  visitor  to  his  palace  searched  for  concealed 
weapons,  even  to  his  own  nearest  relations,  and — such  is  the  story — 
would  not  even  allow  a  barber  to  approach  his  person  with  a  razor. 
The  well-known  tale  of  Damocles  illustrates  well  enough,  whether 
it  be  true  or  false,  the  state  of  nervous  tension  to  which  the  tyrant 
was  reduced.  That  courtier,  having  expressed  his  envy  of  the 
prosperity  of  Dionysius,  was  invited  to  a  banquet,  placed  in  the  seat 
of  honor,  robed  like  a  king,  and  sen^ed  with  the  choicest  wines  and 
viands.  But  in  the  midst  of  the  feast  his  host  bade  him  look 
upward.  Damocles  did  so,  and  found  a  heavy  sword  suspended 
over  his  head  by  a  single  hair,  and  threatening  every  moment  to 
fall.     "  Such,"  said  Dionysius,  "  is  the  life  of  a  tyrant." 

The  reign  of  Dionysius  was  one  long  struggle  against  the 
power  of  Carthage.  Four  desperate  wars  with  that  state  occupied 
his  energies.  His  other  achievements,  brilliant  and  startling 
though  they  appeared,  were  but  interludes  between  the  acts  of  the 
greater  drama.  It  is  strange  to  find  that  the  first  efforts  of  Diony- 
sius were  the  least  successful ;  though  he  had  been  allowed  to  seize 
sovereign  power  precisely  because  the  Syracusan  generals  had  failed 
to  hold  back  Himilco,  yet  his  earliest  campaign  (405  B.C.)  was 
quite  as  unsuccessful  as  that  of  his  predecessors.  He  lost  a  battle 
before  Gela,  and  was  compelled  to  evacuate  both  that  town  and 
Camarina,  whose  inhabitants  had  to  flee  by  night,  and  to  join  the 
exiled  Acragantines  at  Leontini.     But  chance  came  to  the  tyrant's 


THE    WEST  413 

404-395  B.C. 

aid:  the  plague  which  had  raged  in  the  Carthaginian  camp  in  the 
previous  year  broke  out  again ;  Himilco  saw  half  his  army  stricken 
down,  and  in  fear  for  his  conquests  made  peace  with  Dionysius, 
restoring  the  territories  of  Gela  and  Camarina,  and  only  adding  that 
of  Acragas  to  the  Carthaginian  dominions  in  Sicily. 

For  the  next  five  years  Dionysius  was  occupied  in  a  bitter 
struggle  with  his  unwilling  subjects;  plots  and  insurrections  broke 
out  again  and  again.  The  whole  city  once  fell  for  a  moment  into 
the  hands  of  the  rebels  in  404  B.C.  The  tyrant  recovered  it :  but  in 
403  B.C.  a  large  force  from  Rhegium  and  Messene  joined  the  Syra- 
cusan  exiles,  got  possession  of  the  mainland  quarters  of  the  town, 
and  besieged  Dionysius  in  the  island-citadel  of  Ortygia.  But  the 
military  skill  and  unscrupulous  energy  of  the  tyrant  brought  him  out 
of  the  struggle  stronger  then  ever.  Not  only  did  he  make  his 
throne  firm,  but  he  fell  upon  his  neighbors,  and  in  a  short  space 
conquered  Naxos,  Catana,  and  the  Sicel  tribes  of  the  interior.  He 
then  felt  himself  strong  enough  to  renew  the  war  with  Carthage, 
but,  as  a  measure  of  precaution,  first  enlarged  the  fortifications  of 
Syracuse  so  as  to  include  the  whole  plateau  of  Epipolae,  taking  within 
the  new  wall  all  the  upland  where  the  fighting  during  the  Athe- 
nian siege  had  gone  on.  Thus  he  tripled  the  extent  of  the  city ;  and 
though  the  new  quarters  were  not  filled  with  houses,  they  were 
spacious  enough  to  serve  as  a  place  of  refuge  for  the  whole  popu- 
lation of  southeastern  Sicily  in  time  of  war.  Dionysius's  second 
attack  on  Carthage  opened  with  a  series  of  victories  (397  b.c), 
but  just  as  he  seemed  to  have  the  whole  island  in  his  grasp,  an  un- 
expected fleet  and  army  of  the  enemy  fell  on  Messene  and  took  it 
by  storm.  Dionysius,  attacked  in  the  rear,  had  to  abandon  his 
conquests  in  the  west  of  Sicily,  and  rush  back  to  defend  Syracuse 
from  an  invasion  from  the  north.  In  front  of  Catana  he  gave 
battle  to  Himilco,  who  again,  as  in  406  b.c,  headed  the  invaders; 
there  he  was  utterly  defeated,  and  the  enemy  pushed  on  to  besiege 
Syracuse.  But  the  new  walls  stood  the  city  in  good  stead;  the 
tyrant  had  been  taken  by  surprise  rather  than  crippled,  and  his 
resources  were  not  materially  lessened.  He  stood  firmly  at  bay 
behind  his  fortification  for  many  months,  till  the  plague  that  had 
twice  before  smitten  the  Carthaginians  again  came  to  his  rescue. 
So  fearful  was  its  violence  that  Hamilco  and  his  officers  actually 
fled  from  it,  leaving  their  army  to  perish  wholesale  by  the  ravages 
of  the  pest  and  the  sword  of  Dionysius   (395  B.C.).     The  tyrant 


414  GREECE 

420-383   B.C. 

then  marched  out  of  his  stronghold,  and  took  one  by  one  every 
Carthaginian  stronghold  in  the  island,  except  the  towns  of  Lily- 
baeum  and  Drepantim  at  its  western  extremity. 

Freed  from  the  barbarian,  Dionysius  at  once  turned  on  his 
neighbors,  and  subdued  every  independent  state  in  the  island.  By 
391  B.C.  he  was  master  of  the  whole  of  Sicily  save  the  two  fort- 
resses in  the  west;  and  his  conquests  were  confined  to  him  by  a 
solemn  peace,  in  which  Carthage  formally  resigned  all  she  had 
gained  since  410  B.C. 

Dionysius  now  turned  his  arms  further  afield.  The  Italiot 
Greeks  were  at  this  moment  in  a  state  of  depression,  owing  to  the 
recent  encroachments  of  a  new  enemy  from  the  north.  About  420 
B.C.  the  Sabellian  tribes  of  Central  Italy  had  begun  to  quit  their 
mountain  valleys  and  to  press  southward  and  seaward.  At  the 
very  moment  that  Nicias  was  besieging  Syracuse  they  fell  upon 
Cumae,  the  northernmost  Italiot  city,  and  destroyed  it  (415  B.C.). 
They  reduced  Neapolis  and  other  towns  of  the  neighborhood  to 
the  status  of  tributaries,  and  then  pushed  further  south.  A  tribe 
who  bore  the  name  of  Lucanians  headed  the  advance ;  they  pressed 
into  the  southern  peninsula  of  Italy,  took  the  great  city  of  Posei- 
donia  (circ.  395  B.C.),  and  began  to  encroach  on  the  territories  of 
Thurii,  Croton,  and  Metapontum.  The  Italiots  leagued  themselves 
together  to  resist  the  oncoming  wave  of  barbarism,  but  with  poor 
success.  In  390  b.c.  their  united  forces  experienced  a  crushing 
defeat  at  the  battle  of  Laiis,  and  the  bodies  of  ten  thousand  hop- 
lites  covered  the  field.  It  was  when  the  Hellenic  cities  of  Italy 
were  facing  northward  to  resist  the  Lucanians  that  Dionysius  fell 
upon  their  rear.  His  progress  was  rapid  and  easy;  the  distracted 
Italiots  were  beaten  in  the  open  field,  their  cities  were  besieged, 
and  generally  captured,  and  the  Syracusan  yoke  was  extended  over 
all  the  states  as  far  north  as  Croton.  In  some  cases  Dionysius 
removed  the  inhabitants  bodily,  to  people  the  empty  spaces  within 
the  new  walls  of  Syracuse;  in  others,  where  the  resistance  had 
angered  him,  he  sold  the  whole  population  as  slaves.  Everywhere 
he  plundered  temples  and  private  dwellings  with  perfect  impartiality. 
Pious  Greeks  held  that  the  crowning  atrocity  of  his  life  was  com- 
mitted when  he  took  the  precious  robe  of  Hera — a  masterpiece  of 
the  embroiderer's  art — which  formed  the  pride  of  her  temple  near 
Croton,  and  sold  it  to  the  Carthaginians  for  120  talents  ($135,000). 

In  383  B.C.  Dionysius  became  involved  in  a  third  war  with 


THE    WEST  416 

368-367  B.C. 

Carthage ;  it  lasted  but  a  single  year,  and  led  to  no  decisive  results, 
save  that  Selinus  fell  back  into  the  hands  of  the  barbarian.  But  the 
Carthaginians  could  advance  no  further  east,  and  it  was  evident 
that  Dionysius's  power  formed  a  complete  barrier  to  their  making 
further  conquests  in  Sicily.  A  fourth  war,  which  broke  out  in  368 
B.c.^  was  equally  indecisive ;  the  Syracusans  seized  all  the  Carthagin- 
ian territory  up  to  the  gates  of  Lilybaeum,  but  were  unable  to  take 
that  fortress,  so  that  peace  had  once  more  to  be  concluded  on  the 
basis  of  uti  possidetis  in  367  b.c.^  just  after  the  decease  of 
Dionysius. 

The  last  twenty  years  of  Dionysius's  rule  were  outwardly  full 
of  prosperity.  Syracuse  seemed  the  greatest  and  most  flourishing 
city  in  the  Greek  world,  and  formed  the  center  of  an  empire  reach- 
ing from  Croton  to  Acragas.  Twenty  thousand  veteran  merce- 
naries served  beneath  the  Syracusan  banner,  so  that  Dionysius  was 
even  able  to  interfere  with  events  across  the  Ionian  Sea,  and  is 
found  several  times  influencing  the  course  of  politics  in  old  Greece. 
His  magnificent  embassies  attracted  the  admiration  of  the  lovers  of 
pomp  and  the  hatred  of  the  lovers  of  liberty  when  they  appeared  at 
the  Olympic  games.  He  took  in  hand  schemes  of  extraordinary 
scope,  such  as  that  of  building  a  wall  right  across  the  southern  pen- 
insula of  Italy  from  sea  to  sea,  in  order  to  keep  out  the  advancing 
Lucanians.  In  the  midst  of  all  his  toils  of  state  he  found  time  to 
compose  poems  and  tragedies,  and  wrote  with  sufficient  merit  to  win 
the  first  prize  at  Athens,  in  the  Dionysia  of  386  B.C.  But  his  life,  if 
brilliant  and  many-sided,  was  anxious  and  wearing;  his  suspicions 
gave  him  no  rest,  and  in  367  B.C.  he  died,  aged  not  much  over  sixty, 
leaving  a  secure  throne,  a  full  treasury,  and  a  veteran  army  to  his 
son  and  namesake,  Dionysius  II. 

Dionysius  the  younger,  though  not  destitute  of  ability,  was  far 
from  possessing  the  restless  energy  and  grim  determination  of  his 
father.  He  cared  little  for  military  matters,  and  thought  more  of 
the  splendor  than  the  power  of  the  tyrant's  position.  Vain,  idle, 
and  capricious,  he  was  ready  to  hand  over  authority  to  others,  pro- 
vided that  he  reaped  the  credit,  and  was  not  troubled  with  the  cares 
of  administration.  But  he  would  not  trust  any  man  for  long.  At 
first  he  put  the  government  in  the  hands  of  his  wife's  father,  Dion 
— a  grave  personage  of  a  philosophic  turn  of  mind,  who  tried  to 
convert  the  Syracusan  tyranny  into  a  model  monarchy,  and  brought 
over  the  philosopher  Plato  to  train  Dionysius  into  an  ideal  king. 


416  GREECE 

367-346   B.C. 

The  young  tyrant  took  keenly  to  philosophy  for  a  short  time,  but 
found  his  teachers  too  tiresome  and  exacting,  and  ere  long  banished 
Dion  and  sent  Plato  home.  For  seven  or  eight  years  Dionysius 
held  his  father's  empire  together  without  any  conspicuous  failures; 
for,  although  indolent  and  vain,  he  was  neither  cruel,  reckless,  nor 
stupid.  But  he  was  not  the  man  either  to  win  the  loyalty  or  to 
awe  the  minds  of  his  subjects;  and  when  Dion — who  had  been  for 
several  years  employed  in  gathering  men  and  money  in  old  Greece — 
suddenly  landed  in  Sicily,  a  general  insurrection  took  place.  First 
the  smaller  Siceliot  towns  threw  open  their  gates  to  Dion,  then  the 
Syracusans  rose,  and  after  a  sharp  fight  drove  the  tyrant's  merce- 
naries into  the  citadel  of  Ortygia.  Dionysius,  who  had  been  absent 
on  an  expedition  to  Italy,  returned  to  find  himself  master  of  noth- 
ing more  than  the  island  fortress.  The  siege  of  Ortygia  lasted  for 
many  months,  and  Dion  suffered  several  reverses  before  he  suc- 
ceeded in  starving  out  the  tyrant's  garrison.  Dionysius  himself 
escaped  to  Locri  in  Italy,  the  only  one  of  his  father's  possessions 
which  he  had  succeeded  in  retaining  under  his  power. 

Dion  was  now  master  of  Syracuse,  and  the  insurgents  who  had 
aided  him  to  expel  his  son-in-law  eagerly  waited  for  the  grave 
philosopher  to  proclaim  the  liberty  of  his  native  city.  But  the 
temptations  of  power  proved  too  much  for  Dion ;  he  installed  him- 
self in  the  citadel,  and  showed  no  signs  of  dismissing  his  troops  or 
re-establishing  the  democratic  form  of  government.  When  a  dema- 
gogue named  Heracleides  proposed  to  cast  down  the  walls  of 
Ortygia,  Dion  had  him  put  to  death.  The  Syracusans  recognized 
that  their  efforts  had  merely  replaced  an  indolent  and  easy-natured 
tyrant  by  an  austere  one.  The  city  was  ripe  for  rebellion,  when 
the  Athenian  Callippus — a  follower  of  Plato,  who  had  accompanied 
Dion  on  his  return  from  exile — treacherously  slew  his  friend  and 
fellow-philosopher  (353  B.C.). 

Nine  years  of  chaos  followed  in  Sicily.  A  succession  of  mili- 
tary adventurers  disputed  with  each  other  for  the  possession  of 
Syracuse;  and  so  far  was  liberty  being  restored  to  the  state,  that 
when,  in  346  B.C.,  the  exiled  tyrant  Dionysius  presented  himself 
before  the  gates  of  the  city,  a  numerous  faction  hastened  to  admit 
him.  His  rule  had,  at  any  rate,  been  better  than  the  anarchy  which 
had  succeeded  it.  But  Dionysius  had  taken  to  habits  of  drunken- 
ness and  debauchery,  and  showed  himself  far  from  being  the  easy- 
going prince  that  the  Syracusans  had  expected.     Moreover,  he  was 


THE    WEST  417 

346-339  B.C. 

unable  to  restore  the  dominion  of  his  father  over  the  other  Sicilian 
cities,  and  his  wars  with  them  cost  his  subjects  much  blood  and 
treasure.  To  add  to  the  woes  of  the  Siceliots,  Carthage,  who  had 
kept  quiet  for  twenty  years,  suddenly  resumed  her  attacks  on  her 
Hellenic  neighbors,  and  seemed  likely  to  conquer  them  all,  now  that 
no  vigorous  central  power  bound  the  Sicilian  cities  into  a  single 
state. 

In  these  evil  days  the  democratic  party  at  Syracuse  secretly 
sent  to  Corinth,  their  mother-city,  to  beg  for  aid  against  both  the 
tyrant  and  the  Carthaginians.  There  was  a  momentary  lull  in 
Greek  politics  at  the  time — the  Sacred  war  had  just  ended — and 
the  Corinthians  consented  to  lend  their  help  to  free  their  daughter- 
state.  They  fitted  out  a  small  expedition,  and  gave  the  command 
of  it  to  Timoleon,  a  stern  republican,  who  had  taken  part  in  the 
slaying  of  his  own  brother  when  that  brother  endeavored  to  make 
himself  tyrant  of  Corinth. 

Timoleon  reached  Sicily  in  safety,  and  in  four  brilliant  cam- 
paigns completely  liberated  the  island.  He  found  Dionysius  so 
hard  pressed  by  his  enemy  Hiketas,  tyrant  of  Leontini,  that  he  was 
glad  to  leave  Sicily  under  a  safe-conduct,  when  a  new  enemy  came 
to  attack  him.  The  ex-ruler  of  Syracuse  retired  to  Corinth,  where 
he  long  dwelt  as  a  private  citizen,  an  object  of  curiosity  to  the  whole 
of  Greece.  He  seems  to  have  borne  his  fall  with  considerable 
equanimity.  He  showed  no  vain  regrets  for  his  lost  power;  and, 
when  not  engaged  in  a  drinking-bout,  employed  his  time  in  giving 
lectures  on  singing  and  recitation,  or  in  instructing  the  boys  of 
Corinth  in  the  art  of  reading  aloud. 

After  he  had  expelled  Dionysius,  Timoleon  was  fiercely  at- 
tacked both  by  the  tyrant  Hiketas  and  by  the  Carthaginians,  who 
joined  their  forces  to  beleaguer  Syracuse.  Timoleon  held  them  in 
check  till  their  ill  success  drove  them  to  suspect  each  other's  faith. 
The  Carthaginians  abandoned  Hiketas,  who  was  driven  off,  and 
after  a  while  besieged  in  his  capital  of  Leontini  and  forced  to 
capitulate.  Then  Timoleon  was  able  to  turn  against  the  barbarian 
enemy.  He  advanced  into  the  west  of  the  island  with  a  small  army 
of  twelve  thousand  men,  and  met  the  Carthaginians,  who  out- 
numbered him  fivefold,  on  the  banks  of  the  Crimesus.  Allowing 
the  enemy  to  advance  unmolested  for  some  time,  he  suddenly  fell 
upon  them  while  their  forces  were  divided  by  a  ravine  and  the 
flooded  river.     The  victory  was  as  decisive  as  that  which  Gelo  had 


418  GREECE 

338-336    B.C. 

won  a  hundred  and  forty  years  before  under  the  walls  of  Himera. 
For  thirty  years  the  Carthaginians  dared  not  again  assail  their 
Hellenic  neighbors. 

Timoleon  laid  down  his  power  after  expelling  from  Sicily  the 
remaining  tyrants,  who  had  seized  on  the  smaller  towns  during  the 
years  of  anarchy.  He  spent  an  honored  old  age  in  the  city  which 
he  had  freed,  and  had  the  happiness  to  die  before  Syracuse  was 
again  troubled  by  aspirants  for  tyranny,  or  molested  by  the  enemy 
from  Africa  (336  B.C.). 

While  Sicily  had  been  saved  by  Timoleon,  the  Italiots  had  been 
far  less  fortunate.  When  the  Dionysian  dynasty  fell,  the  cities 
recovered  their  independence,  but  found  themselves  exposed  to  the 
inroads  of  the  Lucanians,  whom  the  power  of  Dionysius  had  long 
kept  in  check.  The  invaders  gradually  forced  their  way  southward, 
took  the  towns  of  Terina  and  Hipponium  (355  B.C.),  and  estab- 
lished themselves  firmly  in  the  southern  peninsula  of  Italy,  where 
the  sub-tribe  of  the  Bruttians,  the  vanguard  of  the  oncoming  host, 
formed  themselves  into  a  powerful  state.  Locri,  Rhegium,  and 
Croton  were  barely  able  to  preserve  for  themselves  a  small  terri- 
tory close  around  their  own  walls.  The  Tarentines,  further  to  the 
north,  made  a  better  fight,  and  beat  off  the  Lucanians  for  some 
years  by  calling  into  their  aid  King  Archidamus  of  Sparta,  the  son 
of  the  great  Agesilaus.  When  he  fell  in  battle  (338  B.C.)  he  was 
replaced  in  command  of  the  Tarentine  armies  by  Alexander,  Prince 
of  Epirus,  a  brilliant  warrior,  who  obtained  success  after  success 
against  the  Lucanians  and  Bruttians,  and  so  broke  their  power  that, 
though  always  dangerous,  they  no  longer  appeared  irresistible  to 
the  Italiot  states. 

It  was  Rome,  and  not  the  Lucanians,  who  was  destined  to 
extinguish  the  liberty  of  the  cities  of  Magna  Graecia;  and  the  arms 
of  Rome  were  still  far  off. 


Chapter    XXXVIII 

LAST  YEARS  OF  SPARTAN   HEGEMONY,  387-379  B.C. 

THE  peace  of  Antalcidas  proved  quite  as  profitable  to  Sparta 
as  the  most  sanguine  of  her  statesmen  had  ventured  to 
hope.  By  it  she  had  dehberately  sacrificed  the  remnant 
of  her  possessions  in  Asia,  but  at  that  cost  she  had  broken  up  the 
formidable  coalition  which  menaced  her  supremacy  in  Europe.  The 
terms  of  the  treaty — which  announced  that  "  every  Hellenic  city 
was  to  be  free  and  independent  " — left  her  own  power  untouched, 
because  her  relations  with  her  smaller  neighbors  were  based,  not 
on  bonds  of  federation,  but  on  separate  treaties  with  each  individual 
state.  Moreover,  the  allied  cities  were  not  kept  to  their  allegiance 
by  garrisons,  or  forced  to  pay  tributes;  they  were  held  down  each 
by  the  Laconizing  party  within  its  own  walls.  Ostensibly,  then,  the 
allies  of  Sparta  were  "  free  and  independent,"  and  the  treaty  made 
no  difference  in  their  status. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  bonds  which  had  united  the  enemies 
of  Sparta  were  broken  by  the  provisions  of  the  peace  of  Antalcidas. 
The  Boeotian  League,  which  Thebes  had  tried  to  keep  together 
by  coercing  her  smaller  neighbors,  at  once  flew  to  pieces.  When 
the  peace  was  proclaimed  well-nigh  every  town  in  Boeotia  threw 
over  the  league,  asserted  its  complete  independence,  and  assumed 
all  the  attributes  of  autonomy  ^  in  a  way  which  had  not  been 
seen  since  447  B.C.,  the  year  in  which  Thebes  had  reconstructed  the 
confederacy.  Not  contented  with  seeing  her  enemy  crippled  in 
this  way,  Sparta  induced  the  remnants  of  the  Plataeans,  who  had 
dwelt  in  Attica  ever  since  430  b.c.^  to  return  to  the  site  of  their 
ruined  city,  and  to  rebuild  it  in  spite  of  Thebes.  It  was  not  only 
in  Boeotia  that  the  peace  of  Antalcidas  brought  about  changes; 
in  Peloponnesus,  Argos  and  Corinth  had  united  during  the  war, 
and  fused  themselves  into  a  federal  state :  they  were  now  compelled 

1  For  example,  they  all  began  coining  money  in  their  own  names,  which 
Thebes  had  not  allowed  since  the  league  was  reformed  after  the  defeat  of  Athens 
in  447  B.C. 

419 


420  GREECE 

422-392    B.C. 

to  separate,  and  the  Laconizing  party  in  Corinth  soon  brought 
back  their  city  to  its  old  dependence  on  Sparta. 

When  affairs  had  settled  down  in  Greece,  and  the  Spartans 
once  more  found  themselves  firmly  established  in  their  old  position, 
they  soon  showed  how  little  they  cared  for  the  wording  of  the 
treaty  of  387  B.C.  when  it  affected  themselves.  Ere  two  years  had 
passed  they  fell  on  their  Arcadian  neighbors,  razed  the  walls  of 
Mantinea,  and  compelled  its  citizens  to  exchange  a  democratic  for 
an  oligarchic  form  of  government.  Not  long  after  they  turned  on 
Phlius,  and  restored  its  exiled  aristocracy  by  force  of  arms.  Such 
was  the  way  in  which  Sparta  left  her  neighbors  "  free  and  inde- 
pendent." 

It  was  Agesilaus  who  now  directed  the  policy  of  his  country- 
men. He  had  won  unbounded  glory  both  by  his  Asiatic  campaigns 
and  by  his  later  achievements  in  the  Corinthian  war;  this  made  him 
the  idol  of  the  citizens.  Moreover,  his  ambition  was  not  political, 
but  purely  military ;  he  was  therefore  able  to  avoid  all  conflicts  with 
the  ephors,  and  lived  on  such  good  terms  with  them  that  they 
continually  lent  themselves  to  his  plans.  Agesilaus  continued  the 
narrow  and  jealous  policy  of  which  Lysander  had  once  been  the 
exponent.  He  cared  nothing  for  the  general  needs  of  Greece,  and 
made  it  the  main  object  of  his  life  that  no  state  should  ever  be 
allowed  to  grow  strong  enough  to  cause  Sparta  a  moment's 
uneasiness. 

Ere  long  this  selfish  policy  was  put  into  practice  on  a  large 
scale.  The  Greiek  cities  on  the  Macedonian  coast,  since  they  had 
been  liberated  by  Brasidas  in  422  B.C.,  had  preserved  their  independ- 
ence amid  obscure  wars  with  each  other,  and  with  the  barbarian 
kings  of  the  inland.  At  last,  about  392  b.c,  a  number  of  the  states, 
headed  by  Olynthus,  had  formed  themselves  into  a  confederacy 
called  the  Chalcidian  League,  from  the  fact  that  nearly  all  its  mem- 
bers lay  within  the  peninsula  of  Chalcidice.  This  body  was  already 
growing  powerful — it  could  put  into  the  field  eight  thousand  hop- 
lites  and  a  thousand  horse — and  appeared  destined  to  absorb  all 
the  Greek  states  in  its  neighborhood.  Frightened  at  its  progress, 
the  towns  of  Acanthus  and  Apollonia,  which  had  no  desire  to  enter 
the  league,  sent  an  embassy  to  Sparta  to  beg  the  ephors  to  assist 
them  in  maintaining  their  independence.  The  Chalcidian  League 
had  given  no  cause  of  offense,  and  was  putting  forth  its  activity 
in  a  district    where    Sparta    had    not    interfered  for  forty  years. 


SPARTAN    HEGEMONY  421 

392   B.C. 

Nevertheless,  Agesilaus  and  his  followers  were  quite  ready  to  take 
up  the  quarrel,  for  the  sole  reason  that  they  thought  that  the  league 
might  some  day  grow  dangerous. 

There  was  a  party  at  Sparta  which  opposed  this  reckless  inter- 
vention in  so  distant  a  land,  on  grounds  of  expediency  as  well  as 
of  public  morality.  It  was  headed  by  the  young  King  Agesipolis ; 
for,  as  was  usual,  the  two  royal  houses  had  espoused  different  lines 
of  policy.  But  Agesilaus  and  the  supporters  of  vigorous  action 
were  far  the  more  powerful,  and  carried  a  vote  in  favor  of  war  at 
the  next  meeting  of  the  Apella.  It  was  resolved  to  raise  an  army 
of  ten  thousand  men  from  among  the  allies  of  Sparta,  for  service 
against  Olynthus  and  her  sister-cities  of  the  Chalcidian  League. 
The  main  body  was  not  to  start  till  the  following  spring,  but  two 
officers,  named  Eudamidas  and  Phoebidas,  were  sent  forward  at 
once — the  month  was  now  September — with  about  two  thousand 
men  destined  to  garrison  Acanthus  and  Apollonia. 

The  march  of  Phoebidas  took  him  through  Boeotia,  and  he 
pitched  his  camp  for  one  night  not  far  from  the  walls  of  Thebes. 
While  he  lay  there  he  was  surprised  by  a  visit  from  Leontiades,  one 
of  the  two  polemarchs  who  were  the  supreme  magistrates  in  the 
Theban  constitution.  Leontiades,  who  was  a  violent  partisan  of 
oligarchy,  was  engaged  at  that  moment  in  a  bitter  struggle  with 
his  fellow-polemarch  Ismenias,  the  head  of  the  democratic  and  anti- 
Laconian  party  in  Boeotia.  With  the  true  Greek  recklessness  in 
matters  of  faction,  Leontiades  had  resolved  to  crush  his  enemy  at 
any  sacrifice,  even  though  it  involved  the  ruin  of  his  country.  He 
came  to  Phoebidas  by  night,  and  offered  to  place  him  in  possession 
of  the  Cadmeia,  the  citadel  of  Thebes,  in  return  for  aid  against 
Ismenias.  The  Spartan  commander  was  prompt,  daring,  and 
utterly  unscrupulous;  he  instantly  closed  with  the  offer  of  Leon- 
tiades, and  undertook  to  carry  out  his  directions.  The  Theban 
pointed  out  that  the  next  day  was  the  festival  of  the  Thesmophoria, 
during  which  the  citadel  was  stripped  of  guards  and  handed  over 
to  the  women  of  the  city,  who  there  celebrated  certain  rites  at  which 
men  were  not  allowed  to  be  present.  He  himself,  as  polemarch, 
was  in  charge  of  the  gates,  and  would  see  that  they  were  open  at 
the  preconcerted  hour.  Sparta  and  Thebes  were  at  peace,  no  one 
suspected  treachery,  and  the  town  would  be  taken  completely 
unawares. 

The  next  day  Phoebidas  carried  out  this  monstrous  scheme. 


422  GREECE 

392  B.C. 

He  got  his  troops  in  marching  order,  and  started  as  if  he  was  about 
to  proceed  northward  on  his  way  toward  Chalcidice.  But  suddenly 
he  swerved  from  his  route,  and  appeared  at  midday  before  the 
gates  of  Thebes.  There  he  met  Leontiades,  who  admitted  him  into 
the  town.  The  streets  were  empty  in  the  noontide  heat,  no  man 
offered  opposition,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  Spartans  had  entered 
the  citadel,  and  seized  as  hostages  the  great  crowd  of  women  who 
were  celebrating  the  festival.  Before  anyone  realized  what  had 
happened,  Leontiades  rode  down  to  the  senate  house,  and  an- 
nounced to  the  astonished  elders  of  Thebes  that  their  city  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  Spartans.  So  great  was  the  panic  that  no  one  dared 
resist  the  traitor;  he  was  allowed  to  seize  and  imprison  his  rival 
Ismenias,  and  to  summon  a  packed  assembly  of  the  people,  which 
voted  submission  to  the  ancient  enemy.  Three  hundred  prominent 
members  of  the  democratic  party  left  the  city  at  once,  and  fled  to 
Athens ;  but  the  bulk  of  the  Thebans  were  so  cowed  that  they 
acquiesced  for  the  moment  in  the  assumption  of  power  by  Leon- 
tiades and  his  friends. 

Thus  was  planned  and  executed  the  most  flagrant  breach  of 
international  morality  that  Greece  ever  knew — a  crime  even  more 
wanton  than  the  Athenian  capture  of  Melos,  though  it  involved 
far  less  bloodshed  than  that  horrid  deed.  Men  hoped  for  a 
moment  that  Sparta,  selfish  though  she  might  be,  would  disown 
her  general's  action.  And,  indeed.  King  Agesipolis  and  his  fol- 
lowers, when  the  news  arrived,  clamored  loudly  for  the  punishment 
of  Phoebidas  and  the  evacuation  of  the  Cadmeia.  But  Agesilaus 
promptly  rose  to  defend  the  general ;  he  stated  his  views  with  the 
most  repulsive  and  cynical  frankness.  "  We  must  examine,"  he 
said,  "  the  tendency  of  the  action  of  Phoebidas.  Let  us  consider 
whether  it  is  advantageous  to  Sparta.  If  it  is  so,  it  was  highly 
meritorious  in  him  to  carry  it  out,  even  though  he  had  no  authority 
or  orders  from  home."  The  Spartans  proved  as  immoral,  though 
not  as  brazen-faced,  as  their  king;  they  passed  a  decree  which  cen- 
sured Phoebidas  for  acting  without  orders,  and  imposed  a  fine  on 
him ;  but  after  this  display  of  hypocrisy  they  voted  in  favor  of  the 
retention  of  the  Cadmeia,  and  sent  harmosts  to  Thebes  to  take 
command  of  the  garrison.  Ismenias  they  brought  to  Sparta,  and 
put  on  his  trial  for  "  Medism  "  on  account  of  his  conduct  in  395  B.C. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  unfortunate  statesman  was  condemned 
and  executed. 


SPARTAN    HEGEMONY  423 

379   B.C. 

The  political  extinction  of  the  second  state  in  Greece,  which 
perished  in  a  time  of  peace,  and  without  being  able  to  strike  a  blow 
in  self-defense,  caused  terror  everywhere.  It  seemed  as  if  un- 
righteousness was  about  to  prosper,  since  no  state  dared  take  Sparta 
to  task,  and  for  three  years  everything  went  well  with  her  arms. 
The  Chalcidians,  indeed,  made  a  brave  defense;  they  defeated  and 
slew  Teleutias,  the  brother  of  Agesilaus,  who  led  the  first  army 
against  them.  But  King  Agesipolis  then  took  the  field,  captured 
Torone,  and  laid  siege  to  Olynthus.  He  died  of  a  fever  before  the 
city  fell,  but  Polybiades,  his  successor  in  command,  received  its 
surrender.  The  Chalcidian  League  was  then  dissolved,  and  each 
of  its  members  enrolled  separately  as  a  subject  ally  of  Sparta  (379 
B.C.).  The  day  was  to  come,  ere  that  generation  had  passed  away, 
when  Sparta  and  every  state  in  Greece  was  destined  to  lament 
bitterly  the  destruction  of  that  vigorous  confederacy.  It  had  served 
to  keep  back  the  advancing  power  of  the  kings  of  Macedonia — a 
power  which  was  now  left  unchecked,  and  began  first  to  encroach 
on  its  Hellenic  neighbors,  and  then  to  rise  into  a  public  danger  to 
the  whole  of  Greece. 

The  same  year  that  saw  the  fall  of  Olynthus  was  destined  to 
mark  the  end  of  the  good  fortune  of  Sparta.  The  city  which  she 
had  most  deeply  wronged  was  fated  to  be  her  bane.  Thebes  had 
now  been  groaning  for  three  years  beneath  the  yoke  of  Leontiades 
and  his  partisans,  the  polemarchs  Philippus  and  Archias.  Her 
citizens  had  hoped  at  first  that  some  fortunate  chance  might  weaken 
Sparta,  and  free  them.  But  when  all  went  well  with  their  oppres- 
sor, sheer  desperation  drove  the  most  reckless  of  the  Thebans  into 
forming  a  conspiracy.  The  exiles  of  the  democratic  party,  who 
mostly  resided  at  Athens,  got  into  communication  with  the  mal- 
contents at  home,  and  between  them  a  daring  and  hazardous  plot 
was  devised.  It  was  to  commence  with  the  assassination  of  Leon- 
tiades and  the  two  polemarchs,  and  to  end  with  an  attempt  to  storm 
the  citadel  and  expel  the  Spartan  garrison.  Seven  exiles  from 
Athens,  headed  by  two  young  men  named  Melon  and  Pelopidas, 
were  to  undertake  the  actual  slaying  of  the  tyrants,  while  a  citizen 
named  Charon  lent  them  his  house  as  a  hiding-place.  Phyllidas,  the 
secretary  of  the  polemarchs,  who,  in  spite  of  his  official  position,  had 
strong  sympathies  with  the  exiles,  undertook  to  forward  the  scheme. 
For  this  purpose  he  invited  his  employers  to  a  supper,  promising 
that  they  should  not  only  drink  deep,  but  enjoy  the  company  of  the 


424.  GREECE 

379   B.C. 

most  beautiful  women  in  Thebes.  He  undertook  to  introduce  the 
exiles  into  his  house,  muffled  in  female  apparel,  and  left  the  rest 
of  the  business  to  their  hands. 

On  an  appointed  day  the  seven  exiles  passed  into  Thebes  at 
dusk,  disguised  as  country-folk;  they  stole  one  by  one  into  the 
house  of  Charon,  and  remained  there  till  the  next  evening,  when 
Phyllidas  was  to  give  his  supper.  Before  the  hour  had  arrived, 
however,  they  were  startled  by  hearing  their  host  receive  a  sum- 
mons to  appear  before  the  polemarchs.  Charon  set  out  in  much 
trepidation,  for  he  feared  that  the  conspiracy  had  been  discovered. 
But  the  magistrates  had  received  no  definite  information;  they 
merely  warned  him  that  they  had  news  from  Athens  that  a  plot 
was  on  foot,  and  cautioned  him  against  engaging  in  it.  At  night- 
fall the  unsuspecting  polemarchs  entered  the  house  of  Phyllidas, 
and  gave  themselves  up  to  the  pleasures  of  the  table.  In  the  midst 
of  the  feast,  it  is  said,  a  courier  arrived  from  Athens,  bearing  a 
dispatch  for  Archias  which  revealed  the  whole  plot.  But  the 
doomed  man  thrust  the  paper  unopened  beneath  the  pillow  of  his 
couch,  exclaiming,  "  Business  to-morrow,"  an  expression  which 
became  proverbial.  When  his  guests  were  heavy  with  wine,  Phyl- 
lidas introduced  the  conspirators,  who  entered  the  house  shrouded 
in  ample  robes,  and  with  their  faces  veiled.  They  reached  the  sup- 
per room  unsuspected,  and  were  greeted  by  the  half-drunken  guests 
as  the  women  whom  Phyllidas  had  promised  to  introduce.  Then, 
casting  aside  their  disguise,  they  rushed,  dagger  in  hand,  on  the 
polemarchs  and  slew  them  with  repeated  blows.  But  the  leader  of 
the  oligarchs  still  remained.  Leontiades  had  not  been  bidden  to 
the  banquet  of  Phyllidas,  and  was  spending  the  evening  at  home. 
Pelopidas  and  three  more  rushed  to  his  house  the  moment  that 
the  polemarchs  were  dispatched,  and  knocked  at  the  door.  When 
it  was  opened  they  burst  in,  and  found  him  just  about  to  retire 
to  rest.  Leontiades  was  prompt  and  active;  snatching  down  his 
sword  from  the  wall,  he  leaped  to  the  threshold  of  his  bedroom  and 
slew  the  first  conspirator  as  he  entered.  He  fought  hand  to  hand 
with  the  others,  and  was  only  cut  down  by  Pelodipas  after  a  des- 
perate struggle. 

The  tyrannicides  now  ran  to  the  public  prison,  where  they 
contrived  to  kill  the  jailer,  and  to  liberate  a  hundred  and  fifty 
political  prisoners  who  were  lying  in  bonds  awaiting  their  trial. 
These  men  they  furnished  with  weapons,  and  then  sallied  out  into 


SPARTAN    HEGEMONY  425 

379    B.C. 

the  streets,  proclaiming  that  the  tyrants  were  slain,  and  inviting 
all  true  Thebans  to  take  up  arms  and  join  them.  So  great  was  the 
detestation  which  the  rule  of  Leontiades  had  inspired  that  the  citi- 
zens came  out  in  hundreds  to  join  the  conspirators.  But  all  might 
yet  have  gone  wrong  if  the  Spartan  officers  in  the  citadel  had  kept 
their  heads,  for  the  disorderly  mob  of  Thebans  might  easily  have 
been  dispersed  by  the  fifteen  hundred  men  of  whom  the  garrison 
consisted.  But  the  harmosts,  instead  of  sallying  forth,  shut  the 
gates  of  the  Cadmeia,  and  contented  themselves  with  giving  shelter 
to  the  fugitives  of  the  oligarchic  party  who  ran  to  seek  their  succor. 
When  the  morning  dawned  the  whole  city  was  in  the  hands 
of  the  insurgents,  and  several  thousand  men  were  already  mustering 
for  an  attack  on  the  citadel.  An  informal  public  assembly  had 
elected  Pelopidas,  Charon,  and  Melon  as  Boeotarchs,  and  voted  its 
approval  of  the  slaughter  of  the  previous  night.  Assistance  soon 
came  to  the  Thebans — the  exiles  from  Athens  joined  them,  volun- 
teers arrived  from  several  of  the  Boeotian  towns  of  the  anti-Laco- 
nian  party,  and  two  of  the  Athenian  strategi  led  an  Attic  force 
across  Mount  Cithaeron  to  aid  in  the  siege  of  the  citadel.  These 
officers  had  not  obtained  any  formal  authorization  from  the  Ec- 
clesia,  but  they  knew  that  the  bent  of  Athenian  public  opinion  was 
strongly  in  favor  of  Thebes,  and  trusted  to  win  approval  by  the 
success  of  their  actions.  The  Spartan  forces  in  the  Cadmeia  were 
now  closely  beset ;  an  attempt  of  the  Plataeans  to  bring  aid  to  them 
was  defeated,  and  several  assaults  were  delivered  upon  the  wall. 
The  stormers  were  beaten  back,  but  their  fierceness  seemed  to  in- 
crease after  each  repulse,  and  the  harmosts,  who  were  men  of  utter 
incapacity,  lost  all  hope  of  ultimate  success.  After  three  or  four 
days  they  made  overtures  for  surrender,  which  were  gladly  ac- 
cepted. Accordingly  the  garrison  marched  out  of  the  citadel, 
leaving  their  friends,  the  Theban  oligarchs,  to  be  massacred  by  the 
mob,  and  took  the  road  for  the  Isthmus.  At  Megara  they  met  a 
large  Peloponnesian  army  under  King  Cleombrotus,  which  was 
hastening  to  their  succor.  The  Spartans  were  wildly  enraged  with 
the  officers,  who  had  made  such  a  feeble  defense  in  such  a  strong 
fortress  as  the  Cadmeia.  With  a  severity  which  can  hardly  be 
blamed,  they  put  to  death  two  of  the  harmosts,  and  sent  the  third 
into  exile. 


Chapter     XXXIX 

UPRISING  OF  THEBES,  379-371  B.C. 

ALTHOUGH  Thebes  had  freed  herself  for  the  moment, 
/%  there  was  no  great  expectation  in  Greece  of  her  proving 
X  JL  aljle  to  defend  the  liberty  she  had  regained.  Sparta  was 
at  the  height  of  her  strength,  and  imvexed  by  any  other  enemy; 
if  Thebes,  with  Corinth,  Athens,  and  Argos  to  back  her,  had  proved 
unable  to  overthrow  the  Lacedaemonian  power  in  the  struggle  of 
395-387  B.c.^  what  chance  was  there  of  her  success  when  she 
plunged  into  war  without  the  aid  of  even  her  own  Boeotian 
neighbors  ? 

But  however  dark  their  prospects  might  appear,  the  Thebans 
were  resolved  to  fight  to  the  bitter  end ;  even  destruction  was  pref- 
erable to  submission  to  an  enemy  so  treacherous  and  hypocritical 
as  Sparta.  Nor  was  the  war  so  desperate  as  it  seemed ;  at  this 
moment  there  was  no  Lacedaemonian  general  who  possessed  an 
atom  of  military  genius  save  Agesilaus,  and  Agesilaus  was  now 
verging  on  old  age — he  had  reached  his  fifty-ninth  year — and  was 
no  longer  always  in  the  field.  Thebes,  on  the  other  hand,  hap- 
pened to  have  at  her  disposal  the  two  most  brilliant  men  that  she 
ever  reared — a  happy  chance,  for  great  names  were  always  rare 
in  Boeotia.  The  first  of  these  was  Pelopidas,  one  of  the  leaders 
of  the  late  conspiracy — a  fiery  young  man,  possessing  more  than 
an  ordinary  share  of  military  talent.  He  was  a  brilliant  leader  of 
cavalry,  quick  to  seize  an  opportunity  and  prompt  at  delivering  a 
sudden  blow.  From  his  first  campaign  he  won  the  hearts  of  his 
soldiers,  and  never  failed  to  make  them  follow  wherever  he  might 
lead.  But  first  among  his  merits  was  the  fact  that,  unlike  most 
Greek  generals,  he  was  as  unselfish  as  he  was  brave,  and  never 
refused  to  cooperate  zealously  with  a  colleague,  or  to  carry  out 
plans  which  were  not  his  own. 

When  Athens  had  owned  Aristeides  and  Themistocles,  and 
in  another  generation  Cimon  and  Pericles,  those  great  citizens  had 
put  themselves  at  the  head  of  opposing  factions,  and  done  much  to 

♦26 


UPRISING    OF    THEBES  427 

379  B.C. 

neutralize  each  other's  powers;  but,  to  the  singular  good  fortune 
of  Thebes,  it  chanced  that  Pelopidas  was  the  bosom-friend  of  the 
warrior-statesman  Epaminondas,  the  best  man  that  Boeotia  ever 
reared.  If  Pelopidas  was  the  right  hand  of  Thebes,  Epaminondas 
was  her  brain.  He  combined  intellectual  with  moral  excellence  to 
a  degree  higher  than  was  reached  by  any  other  Greek  statesman  in 
any  age.  Pericles  only  can  be  fairly  compared  with  him,  and  the 
great  Athenian  was  decidedly  inferior  to  the  Theban  in  the  breadth 
of  his  sympathies ;  for  while  Pericles  worked  for  Athens  alone,  and 
showed  no  great  regard  for  Greece,  Epaminondas  was  as  zealous 
in  what  he  wrought  for  the  general  good  of  the  Hellenic  race  as 
in  his  service  to  his  own  native  city.  Moreover,  Pericles  was  at  the 
best  an  average  general,  while  Epaminondas  showed  the  highest 
military  skill,  and  revolutionized  the  whole  art  of  war  among  his 
countrymen.  Epaminondas  came  of  an  ancient  but  impoverished 
family,  and  through  all  his  brilliant  career  lived  a  life  of  honorable 
poverty.  But  though  poor,  he  had  acquired  the  best  culture  of  the 
age;  he  had  studied  music,  rhetoric,  and  philosophy,  without  be- 
coming vain,  affected,  or  unpractical.  No  Greek  was  ever  more 
free  from  the  vices  which  beset  the  statesman;  ambition  and  self- 
interest  never  exercised  the  slightest  influence  on  his  actions.  His 
sense  of  honor  was  so  strong  that  he  even  refused  to  take  an  active 
part  in  the  plot  which  freed  his  native  city,  because  it  involved  vio- 
lence, treachery,  and  assassination.  When,  however,  the  oligarchs  had 
been  slain,  he  was  the  first  citizen  of  Thebes  that  came  out  in  arms 
to  join  the  insurgents,  and  his  eloquent  pleading  drew  over  many 
adherents  to  the  cause  of  liberty.  But  Epaminondas  was  not  merely 
just,  patriotic,  and  unselfish;  he  possessed  the  broadest  political 
ideas  of  any  Greek  statesman  that  ever  lived.  It  was  his  aim  to 
induce  all  the  Hellenic  cities  to  live  together  in  unity,  without  that 
continual  strife  for  pre-eminence  and  domination  which  had  hitherto 
been  the  curse  of  the  race.  He  did  not  fight  in  order  to  destroy 
Sparta,  or  to  make  Thebes  mistress  of  an  empire;  he  desired  only 
to  curb  the  former's  power  of  doing  harm,  and  to  place  his  own 
city  first  among  the  band  of  her  equals.  Indeed,  his  want  of  that 
selfish  and  aggressive  local  patriotism  which  characterized  the 
average  Greek  was  the  one  thing  which  hampered  his  influence  at 
home.  The  Thebans  sometimes  complained  that  he  loved  Hellas 
more  than  his  native  town ;  and  though  the  taunt  was  untrue,  it 
serves  to  indicate  the  bent  of  his  character.    In  379  B.C.  Epaminon- 


428  GREECE 

379-378   B.C. 

das  was  merely  known  as  a  man  of  mark  and  a  friend  of  freedom ; 
that  he  was  also  a  great  general  and  a  great  statesman  the  history 
of  the  succeeding  years  will  show. 

Thebes  had  been  liberated  late  in  the  year,  and  it  was  in  the 
very  depth  of  winter  that  King  Cleombrotus  led  into  Boeotia  a  Pelo- 
ponnesian  army  hastily  raised  for  the  purpose  of  relieving  the 
garrison  of  the  Cadmeia.  When  the  king  found  that  the  citadel 
had  fallen,  he  displayed  great  irresolution.  After  penetrating  into 
the  Theban  territory  and  stopping  there  sixteen  days  without  offer- 
ing battle,  he  suddenly  disbanded  his  army  and  returned  home, 
leaving,  however,  a  force  of  several  thousand  men  to  protect 
Thespiae — the  most  friendly  to  Sparta  of  all  the  towns  of  Boeotia. 
This  detachment  was  commanded  by  a  rash  and  reckless  officer 
named  Sphodrias,  who  now  did  his  best  to  bring  trouble  on  Sparta. 

The  Athenians  were,  on  mature  reflection,  much  frightened 
at  their  own  boldness  in  having  unofficially  aided  *n  the  hueration 
of  Thebes.  To  disarm  the  wrath  of  Sparta  they  punished  the  two 
strategi  who  joined  the  Boeotians,  and  endeavored  to  clear  the  state 
of  all  complicity  in  their  actions.  Sphodrias  chose  this  moment, 
when  Athens  was  anxious  for  peace,  to  inflict  on  her  the  worst  of 
insults.  He  formed  a  wild  scheme  for  surprising  the  city  by  night, 
and  seizing  it  in  the  same  way  that  Phoebidas  had  seized  Thebes 
five  years  before.  Accordingly,  he  secretly  drew  his  men  down 
to  the  Attic  frontier,  and  made  a  forced  march  on  Athens.  But 
his  management  was  as  bad  as  his  intentions;  daylight  surprised 
him  when  he  was  in  the  middle  of  the  Thriasian  plain,  ten  miles 
from  the  city,  and  he  then  turned  ignominiously  and  retreated  to 
Megara.  But  his  plan  stood  revealed,  and  roused  the  Athenians 
to  the  wildest  wrath.  They  reflected  that  there  was  no  use  in  en- 
deavoring to  conciliate  a  city  whose  generals  were  capable  of  such 
acts,  and  boldly  declared  war  on  Sparta.^  Thus  Thebes  was  pro- 
vided with  a  powerful  ally  in  her  hour  of  need. 

In  the  early  summer  of  378  B.C.  the  ephors  prevailed  on  Ages- 
ilaus  to  take  the  field.  The  old  king  gathered  a  large  army  and 
marched  to  crush  Thebes.  He  found  the  passes  of  Cithaeron 
guarded  by  a  mixed  force  of  Athenians  and  Thebans,  but  forced 
a  way  through  with  his  usual  skill.     Descending  into  the  plain,  he 

1  Spliodrias  was  prosecuted  at  Sparta  for  his  action,  but  acquitted  on  the 
recommendation  of  Agcsilaus,  who  now  (as  previously  in  the  case  of  Phoebidas) 
pleaded  that  the  offender  had  striven  to  do  his  best  for  Lacedaemon. 


UPRISING    OF    THEBES  429 

378-376  B.C. 

found  that  the  Thebans  had  drawn  a  strong  line  of  entrenchments 
along  their  frontier;  but  this  hindrance,  too,  he  succeeded  in  pass- 
ing, and  so  penetrated  close  to  Thebes.  But  the  enemy,  though 
they  would  not  give  him  battle,  hung  so  closely  on  his  heels  that 
he  could  not  form  the  siege  of  the  city,  awl  finally  had  to  retire 
with  nothing  accomplished.  To  the  Thebans  this  year's  fighting 
brought  one  cause  of  exultation ;  in  the  autumn  they  surprised  and 
slew  their  old  enemy  Phoebidas.  Next  year  Agesilaus  reappeared 
with  a  larger  army,  and  again  forced  his  way  into  the  Theban 
territory;  he  laid  it  waste  with  the  utmost  barbarity,  felling  fruit- 
trees,  blocking  wells,  and  burning  every  building  in  the  district; 
but  once  more  he  was  unable  either  to  make  the  Thebans  fight  or  to 
besiege  their  city.  In  short,  as  a  contemporary  remarked,  the  king 
had  only  given  his  enemies  an  instructive  lesson  in  the  art  of  war, 
and  done  them  no  material  harm.  These  two  campaigns  lowered 
the  prestige  of  Sparta  to  a  vast  degree;  her  best  general,  with  the 
whole  force  of  Peloponnesus  at  his  back,  had  proved  himself  un- 
able to  make  any  impression  on  a  foe  whom  he  had  expected  to 
crush  at  the  first  encounter.  Moreover,  on  his  return,  Agesilaus 
met  with  an  accident  at  Megara  which  confined  him  to  his  bed 
for  many  months,  and  so  shook  his  health  that  for  several  years 
he  was  not  able  to  take  the  field.^  Cleombrotus  replaced  him  at 
the  head  of  the  army  of  invasion  in  376  b.c.^  but,  having  little  or 
no  military  skill,  was  not  even  able  to  force  the  passes  across 
Cithaeron,  and  returned  without  having  set  foot  in  Boeotia. 

Meanwhile  the  Athenians  had  been  prosecuting  a  naval  war 
against  the  allies  of  Sparta  with  some  success.  They  had  renewed 
the  maritime  league  with  Byzantium  and  Rhodes  which  Thrasy- 
bulus  had  formed  in  390  b.c._,  and  had  induced  several  other  states, 
including  Chios  and  Mitylene,  to  join  it.  The  members  of  this 
alliance  agreed  to  furnish  ships  and  money  for  an  attack  on  Pelo- 
ponnesus, and  appointed  a  joint  board  to  sit  at  Athens  and  direct  the 
war.  In  order  to  avoid  recalling  the  odious  memories  of  the  Con- 
federacy of  Delos,  the  name  of  the  war  fund  was  changed  from 
"  tribute  "  {f6po<i)  to  "  contribution  "(  abvra^i.'?  ),  and  the  Athenians 
solemnly  swore  never  to  send  out  cleruchies  to  any  part  of  the 
Aegean.     The    confederacy    ultimately  came  to  number  seventy 

2  A  vein  in  his  leg  causing  trouble,  the  surgeon  opened  it;  a  flow  of  blood 
followed,  and  was  not  staunched  till  he  fainted  with  weakness  and  was  at  the 
very  point  of  death. 


430  GREECE 

376-373   B.C. 

cities,  but  it  was  never  a  very  vigorous  body;  the  allies  had  a  lurk- 
ing fear  of  the  ambition  of  Athens,  which  made  them  slack  in  pro- 
viding ships,  and  still  more  unv^rilling  to  put  money  into  the  common 
treasury.  Their  caution  grew  yet  more  marked  when,  in  the  year 
376  B.C.,  the  Athenian  admiral  Chabrias  completely  defeated  the 
Spartan  fleet  off  Naxos,  and  swept  the  enemy  out  of  the  Aegean. 
After  this,  the  danger  from  Sparta  having  passed  away,  it  was 
exceedingly  difficult  to  extract  either  ships  or  contributions  from 
the  confederates.  When  Timotheus,  the  son  of  Conon,  rounded 
Cape  Malea  and  carried  the  war  into  the  Ionian  Sea,  he  was  pres- 
ently brought  to  a  standstill  for  sheer  want  of  money.  Yet  he  had 
secured  some  brilliant  successes,  having  beaten  a  Corinthian  fleet 
off  the  Acarnanian  coast,  and  enlisted  Corcyra  and  Cephallenia  in 
the  maritime  league.  The  campaign,  however,  was  very  costly ;  the 
Athenian  treasury  had  run  dry — even  after  the  unpopular  expedi- 
ent of  a  stringent  income-tax  had  been  adopted — and  hardly  an 
obol  could  be  squeezed  out  of  the  allies.  Athens  now  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  she  had  done  enough  to  punish  Sparta  for  the 
misdeed  of  Sphodrias,  and  began  to  think  of  concluding  peace. 
Thebes,  it  was  urged,  had  shown  herself  quite  capable  of  defending 
her  own  borders,  and  there  was  no  use  in  protracting  the  war  for 
her  benefit.  Indeed,  the  Thebans  were  growing  quite  unpopular 
at  Athens,  owing  to  the  rigor  with  which  they  were  treating  their 
neighbors  of  the  smaller  Boeotian  towns.  After  the  retreat  of 
Cleombrotus  in  376  B.C.,  they  had  fallen  upon  the  various  places 
which  still  adhered  to  the  Spartan  alliance.  After  Pelopidas  had 
gained  a  battle  at  Tegyra,  and  beaten  the  Laconizers  and  their 
Peloponnesian  allies  in  the  open  field,  the  separatist  towns  had 
fallen  one  by  one.  Thespiae  and  Tanagra  had  their  walls  de- 
stroyed, while  Plataea  was  razed  to  the  ground,  and  its  inhabitants 
driven  into  exile.  This  maltreatment  of  the  Plataeans  roused  much 
indignation  at  Athens,  where  a  friendly  feeling  for  the  small  state 
on  their  frontier  had  never  ceased  since  the  day  of  Marathon.  Hav- 
ing reduced  all  the  neighboring  towns  save  Orchomenus,  the  The- 
bans now  formally  reconstituted  the  Boeotian  League,  which  had 
been  in  abeyance  for  the  thirteen  years  since  the  peace  of  Antal- 
cidas,  and  assumed  their  old  presidency  in  it.^ 

The  Spartans  were  by  this  time  disgusted  at  their  ill  success 

3  It  is  not  quite  certain  whether  Plataea  and  the  other  places  fell  in  374  b.c.j 
just  before  the  treaty,  or  in  373  B.C.,  just  after  it. 


UPRISING    OF    THEBES  431 

373-372  B.C. 

both  by  sea  and  land,  and  frightened  by  signs  of  growing  dis- 
content among  their  alHes  in  Peloponnesus.  Accordingly  they  pro- 
fessed themselves  ready  to  treat  for  peace.  A  congress  was  held  at 
Athens,  and  terms  of  accommodation  drawn  up,  based  on  those  of 
the  peace  of  Antalcidas,  and  providing  that  "  all  states  should  be 
free  and  independent."  This  formula  satisfied  everyone  except 
the  Thebans,  who  wished  to  have  some  security  against  the  seces- 
sion of  the  cities  they  had  coerced  into  joining  the  Boeotian  League. 
Epaminondas,  who  was  acting  in  behalf  of  his  native  city,  would 
not  sign  the  treaty;  but  Athens  and  the  other  allied  powers  refused 
to  back  up  his  demands ;  they  left  him  in  the  lurch,  and  ratified  the 
terms  of  peace,  thereby  leaving  Thebes  alone  at  war  with  Sparta. 

But  the  treaty  was  destined  to  prove  not  partly,  but  wholly 
abortive.  The  Athenian  admiral  Timotheus,  being  recalled  on  the 
conclusion  of  peace  from  his  station  in  the  Ionian  Sea,  committed 
on  his  return  voyage  some  acts  of  hostility  against  Zacynthus,  a 
Spartan  ally.  This  the  Spartans  highly  resented,  and  the  Apella  * 
voted  "  that  the  Athenians  had  done  injustice,  and  that  war  should 
again  be  declared  on  them."  This  new  conflict,  however,  was  not 
carried  on  with  any  great  vigor;  it  lasted  for  three  years  without 
bringing  about  a  single  engagement  of  importance  by  land  or  sea. 
Its  chief  incident  was  the  siege  of  Corcyra  by  a  large  Spartan  ar- 
mament, which  failed  to  take  the  city,  and  sailed  away  in  great 
disorder  just  in  time  to  escape  an  Athenian  fleet  under  Iphicrates 
which  was  sailing  up  to  relieve  the  place  (373  B.C.).  Iphicrates, 
though  he  did  not  catch  the  hostile  fleet,  showed  himself  in  this  cam- 
paign as  good  a  commander  by  sea  as  he  had  been  by  land  in  the 
Corinthian  war.  He  laid  waste  the  western  coast  of  Peloponnesus, 
and  annihilated  a  small  squadron  of  ships  which  Dionysius  of  Syra- 
cuse had  sent  to  the  assistance  of  Sparta, 

At  last,  in  372  b.c,  the  negotiations  which  had  failed  two 
years  before  were  once  more  renewed.  A  congress  met  at  Sparta, 
and  drew  up  terms  very  similar  to  those  which  had  been  formerly 
agreed  upon.  But  again  the  old  difficulty  arose.  The  Thebans 
claimed  to  treat  and  sign  as  representing  the  Boeotian  League, 
while  Sparta  refused  to  recognize  its  reconstruction,  and  held  by 
the  provisions  of  the  peace  of  Antalcidas.  A  stormy  scene  took 
place  at  the  council  board.  King  Agesilaus  taunted  Epaminondas 
with  refusing  to  leave  the  cities  of  Boeotia  their  rightful  liberty; 
4  The  Spartan  public  assembly. 


432  GREECE 

371   B.C. 

the  Theban  answered  by  sarcastically  inquiring-  when  Sparta  in- 
tended to  grant  similar  rights  to  the  townships  of  Laconia.  Agesi- 
laus  then  lost  his  temper,  and,  exclaiming  that  if  the  Thebans 
wanted  war  they  should  have  it,  snatched  up  the  treaty  and  erased 
their  name  from  the  list  of  signatories.  Athens  and  the  other  allies 
of  Thebes,  however,  accepted  the  terms  offered  them,  ratified  the 
agreement,  and  sent  home  their  fleet  (summer,  371  b.c). 

The  war  had  now  once  more  become  a  duel  between  Thebes  and 
Sparta,  and,  the  issues  being  simplified,  the  conflict  soon  came  to  a 
head.  A  few  weeks  after  the  treaty  had  been  signed.  King  Cleom- 
brotus  set  out  to  invade  Boeotia,  at  the  head  of  an  army  which  had 
been  gathered  in  Phocis  before  the  late  negotiations.  He  chose  to  ad- 
vance into  Boeotia,  not  by  the  valley  of  the  Cephissus,  the  natural 
route,  but  by  the  rough  hill-paths  along  Mount  Helicon,  close  to 
the  seashore.  Thus  he  was  able  to  reach  Leuctra  in  the  Thespian 
territory,  only  eight  miles  from  Thebes,  without  having  been  mo- 
lested by  the  enemy.  Epaminondas,  who  commanded  the  Boeo- 
tians, had  been  expecting  him  to  appear  further  north,  and  had  only 
just  time  to  throw  himself  between  the  invaders  and  Thebes.  The 
armies  encamped  over  against  each  other  on  the  slope  of  Helicon, 
and  a  battle  was  obviously  imminent;  the  best  chance  of  success 
seemed  to  lie  with  the  Spartans,  for  they  considerably  outnumbered 
the  enemy  ^  and  knew  that  many  of  the  troops  in  the  Boeotian  ranks 
were  ill-affected  towards  Thebes. 

Epaminondas,  indeed,  found  some  difficulty  in  inducing  his 
colleagues  the  Boeotarchs  to  consent  to  give  battle.  They  mis- 
trusted their  army,  and  brought  forward  numerous  prophecies  and 
omens  which  portended  ill  success  to  their  arms.  Epaminondas 
was  obliged,  like  Themistocles  before  Salamis,  to  turn  oracle- 
monger  himself.  A  divine  saying  promised  that  "  the  Spartans 
should  be  defeated  at  the  tombs  of  the  maidens  "  ;  and  he  bade  his 
colleagues  observe  that  they  were  drawn  up  near  the  graves  of  two 
Boeotian  damsels  who  had  once  slain  themselves  after  having  suf- 
fered outrage  at  the  hands  of  certain  Lacedaemonians.  This  con- 
vinced the  Boeotarchs;  but  Epaminondas's  own  confidence  lay  not 
in  prophecies,  but  in  his  own  military  skill.  He  had  grasped  a  new 
principle  in  the  art  of  war,  and  was  anxious  to  apply  it;  it  had  oc- 
curred to  him  that  there  were  other  manners  of  bringing  an  army 

^  Plutarch  gives  Cleombrotus  11,000  men;  Diodorus  gives  6000  to  Epaminon- 
das.    But  these  figures  must  be  understated. 


UPRISING    OF    THEBES  433 

371    B.C. 

into  action  besides  the  orthodox  method  which  had  prevailed  in 
Greece  from  time  immemorial.  All  generals  had  been  wont  to 
arrange  their  hoplites  in  a  single  straight  line — generally  of  uniform 
depth  from  end  to  end — to  place  what  cavalry  they  possessed  on  the 
flanks,  and  then  to  fling  the  whole  at  the  enemy's  line,  aiming  at 
striking  him  with  a  level  front  and  bringing  every  man  into  action 
at  the  same  moment.  Epaminondas  had  determined  to  try  a  new 
system — modern  military  authors  would  call  it  the  attack  en  echelon 
— which  he  had  himself  devised.  He  would  strengthen  one  of  his 
wings,  place  his  best  troops  in  it,  and  launch  it  at  the  opposite  wing 
of  the  enemy  before  he  set  his  center  in  motion;  the  center  again 
would  start  a  little  before  the  remaining  wing,  so  that  battle  would 
be  joined  on  the  point  where  he  was  strongest  long  before  the 
weaker  part  of  his  army  had  come  into  action.  If  the  leading  wing 
were  victorious,  the  enemy  would  have  no  opportunity  of  retrieving 
the  battle  in  any  other  part  of  the  field,  and  would  be  in  a  hopeless 
case,  even  although  two-thirds  of  his  army  were  still  intact. 

This  was  the  principle  which  Epaminondas  was  about  to  put 
into  practice.  He  therefore  determined  to  strike  hard  at  the  right 
w'mg  of  the  hostile  line — in  which  he  knew  the  native  Spartans 
would  be  placed,  according  to  the  ancient  usage  which  gave  them 
the  post  of  honor.  If  they  were  once  routed,  he  was  confident  that 
their  allies  would  not  stand  firm,  and  that  the  battle  would  be  gained. 
Accordingly  he  formed  his  own  left  wing  out  of  his  Theban  troops, 
the  only  part  of  his  army  which  he  could  thoroughly  trust.  They 
were  ranged  in  a  massive  column,  no  less  than  fifty  men  deep,  in- 
stead of  the  usual  eight  or  twelve.  The  Boeotian  allies,  who  were 
not  to  be  relied  upon  for  any  very  zealous  service,  were  drawn  up 
in  the  ordinary  line  formation,  and  formed  his  center  and  right 
wing.  His  cavalry,  which  was  good  and  numerous,  advanced  par- 
allel with,  but  in  advance  of  the  left  wing. 

King  Cleombrotus  was  as  anxious  to  fight  as  his  adversary, 
though  for  a  very  different  reason.  He  had  been  often  taunted  for 
mismanaging  his  campaigns  in  378  and  376  B.C.,  and  wished  to 
prove  that  want  of  fortune  and  not  want  of  courage  had  brought 
about  his  failure.  He  drew  up  his  army  in  the  usual  Greek  fashion, 
the  line  twelve  deep  from  end  to  end,  with  the  Laconian  cavalry  on 
the  right  wing,  and  the  allied  cavalry  on  the  left.  He  himself  took 
his  post  in  the  middle  of  the  right  wing,  surrounded  by  the  seven 
hundred  native  Spartans  who  served  with  him,  and  flanked  by  the 


434 


GREECE 


371    B.C. 

Laconian  Perioeci.  His  line  of  battle  stretched  out  at  each  end 
beyond  the  shorter  front  of  the  Boeotian  army,  and  seemed  likely 
to  surround  it  when  the  encounter  came. 

In  the  early  afternoon  the  Spartan  commanders,  flushed,  it 
is  said,  with  wine  after  their  midday  meal,  led  down  their  army 
into  the  plain.     The  Thebans  moved  out  to  meet  them  at  a  rapid 


BceoTiANs  I     '\r^ 

PELOPON-  ^^ 


l£uctra 


£uT>?rsis 


pace,  their  left  wing  far  in  advance,  according  to  Epaminondas's 
new  order  of  battle.  The  fighting  opened  by  a  cavalry  charge  on 
the  extreme  left  flank,  by  which  the  Boeotian  horsemen  drove  the 
Laconian  off  the  field.  Then  the  heavy  column  of  Theban  hoplites 
came  into  action ;  it  bore  down  with  perfect  accuracy  on  the  point 
where  the  king  and  his  native  Spartans  were  stationed.  The  first 
shock  of  the  charge  thrust  it  deep  into  the  line  of  the  enemy.  Cle- 
ombrotus  himself  fell,  and  was  borne  off  the  field  by  his  body- 
guard, but  for  a  moment  the  battle  stood  still.     The  Spartan  line 


UPRISING    OF    THEBES  435 

371    B.C. 

held  together  like  iron,  and  would  not  give  back  a  foot,  while  the 
Perioeci  beside  them  began  to  close  in  on  the  flank  of  the  Theban 
column.  This  movement  was  checked  by  Pelopidas,  who  had  been 
stationed  in  the  rear  of  the  Thebans,  in  command  of  three  hundred 
chosen  hoplites,  known  as  the  "  Sacred  Band,"  with  special  orders 
to  move  out  and  protect  the  main  body  in  case  of  any  such  attempt. 
Meanwhile  the  critical  moment  of  the  fight  had  come;  the  Spartans, 
though  they  fought  and  fell  every  man  in  his  place,  could  no  longer 
resist  the  pressure  of  the  massive  Theban  column,  "  Give  me  a 
step  more,"  cried  Epaminondas  to  his  men,  "and  the  day  is  ours!  " 
With  one  final  heave  the  Thebans  burst  through  the  enemy's  line, 
and  rolled  it  up  to  right  and  left.  The  day  was  won.  In  the  few 
minutes  of  desperate  fighting  four  hundred  out  of  the  seven  hundred 
Spartans  had  fallen,  including  nearly  every  officer  in  the  field.  Over 
a  thousand  Laconian  Perioeci  lay  dead  beside  them,  and  the  rem- 
nants of  the  right  wing  rushed  back  in  confusion  towards  the 
Spartan  camp.  The  result  which  Epaminondas  had  foreseen  im- 
mediately came  to  pass;  the  Peloponnesians  in  the  center  and  left 
wing  of  Cleombrotus's  army  would  not  stand  firm,  when  they  saw 
their  dreaded  masters  beaten  from  the  field.  Although  the  Boeo- 
tian center  had  hardly  come  into  touch  with  them,  and  the  right 
wing  was  still  some  way  off,  they  gave  ground  and  retreated  in 
good  order  to  the  camp.  The  few  surviving  Spartan  officers  tried 
to  make  them  return  to  the  fight,  pointing  out  that  they  still  out- 
numbered the  Boeotians ;  but  they  utterly  refused  to  face  the  enemy 
in  a  second  struggle.  Then  it  became  necessary  to  acknowledge  the 
defeat,  and  the  heralds  went  forth  to  ask  from  Epaminondas  a  truce 
to  bury  the  dead. 

So  ended  the  day  of  Leuctra,  the  first  battle  in  which  a  Spartan 
king  and  army  had  been  worsted  in  fair  fight  by  inferior  numbers 
in  the  open  field.  It  gave  the  death-blow  to  the  military  system 
which  had  ruled  in  Greece  down  to  that  day,  and  cast  the  whole 
fabric  of  the  Spartan  domination  in  ruins  to  the  ground.  Never 
again  was  the  Peloponnesian  confederacy  to  muster  in  force  at  the 
command  of  its  suzerain  for  a  campaign  beyond  the  Isthmus,  nor 
a  king  of  the  race  of  the  Heraclidae  to  set  a  host  in  battle  array  on 
the  plain  of  Boeotia. 


Chapter  XL 

THEBAN    PREDOMINANCE,  371-362  B.C. 

THE  news  of  the  battle  of  Leuctra  set  all  Greece  in  commo- 
tion ;  every  city  in  the  land  began  at  once  to  cast  about  and 
revise  its  policy  in  view  of  the  altered  aspect  of  affairs. 
Sparta  alone  affected  to  treat  her  defeat  as  one  of  the  ordinary 
chances  of  war:  when  the  fatal  tidings  reached  the  city,  the  ephors 
prohibited  all  public  signs  of  grief.  The  festival  of  the  Gymno- 
paidia  was  at  its  height,  but  they  refused  to  allow  it  to  be  inter- 
rupted. When  they  sent  to  each  home  the  names  of  those  who  had 
fallen,  they  added  an  order  that  the  women  w^ere  to  refrain  from 
open  lamentations.  Next  day  the  relatives  of  those  who  had  been 
slain  were  to  be  seen  in  the  streets  with  calm  and  serene  coun- 
tenances ;  while  those  whose  sons  and  brothers  survived  hid  them- 
selves in  shame,  because  their  kinsmen  had  transgressed  Spartan 
custom  by  escaping  with  their  lives  from  a  lost  field.  A  few  days 
later  the  ephors  called  out  an  army  to  march  to  the  relief  of  the 
force  in  Boeotia,  which  was  now  blockaded  in  its  entrenched  camp. 
To  provide  an  adequate  corps  of  Spartans  they  were  obliged  to 
send  into  the  field  every  citizen  up  to  fifty-eight  years  of  age.  But 
this  last  levy  of  Lacedaemon  was  not  fated  to  fight,  for  they  met 
their  friends  already  on  the  march  home,  and  returned  with  them. 
Epaminondas  had  refused  to  allow  his  troops  to  storm  the 
camp  of  the  defeated  army.  Knowing  the  profound  discourage- 
ment which  pervaded  the  Peloponnesian  host,  he  preferred  to 
allow  it  to  break  up,  without  wasting  any  lives  in  further  fighting. 
Many  of  the  demoralized  allies  deserted  their  comrades  without 
delay;  the  remainder  were  so  ill-disposed  that  the  Spartan  officers 
humbled  themselves  to  ask  for  a  free  departure.  The  moment  that 
it  was  conceded  they  slunk  off  by  night,  and  retreated  by  forced 
marches  till  they  met  the  force  that  had  been  sent  out  to  succor 
them. 

The  leniency  with  which  the  Theban  general  treated  the  enemy 
seems  to  have  been  caused  in  a  large  measure  by  the  fact  that,  just 

4^6 


THEBAN    PREDOMINANCE  437 

371    B.C. 

after  Leuctra  had  been  fought,  a  new  army  had  appeared  in  Boeotia. 
This  force  belonged  to  Jason  of  Pherae,  a  personage  whose  move- 
ments had  of  late  grown  important.  The  great  but  faction-ridden 
race  of  the  Thessalians  was  for  the  moment  united  under  his  hand, 
and  constituted  a  power  whose  attitude  Thebes  was  bound  to  watch 
with  the  keenest  vigilance.  Jason  was  the  son-in-law  and  successor 
of  a  citizen  of  Pherae,  named  Lycophron,  who  had  made  himself 
tyrant  of  his  native  town  about  405  b.c.  When  he  died  he  left  his 
principality  and  his  large  army  of  mercenaries  to  Jason,  who,  in  a 
checkered  and  eventful  reign  of  about  twenty  years,  gradually  re- 
duced all  Thessaly  under  his  scepter.  In  373  b.c.  Pharsalus,  the 
last  independent  city  in  the  land,  fell  into  his  hands;  he  then  re- 
organized the  Thessalian  League,  which  had  long  been  a  mere 
name,  and  had  himself  formally  created  Tagus,  or  generalissimo,  of 
the  confederation.  By  his  firm  but  just  rule  he  bound  together 
thirty  bickering  cities  into  a  powerful  federal  state.  When 
united,  the  Thessalians  were  the  most  numerous  race  in  Greece,  so 
ere  long  Jason  could  take  the  field  with  eight  thousand  horse, 
twenty  thousand  hoplites,  and  a  great  multitude  of  light  troops. 
His  strength  was  very  threatening  to  his  neighbors,  and  it  was  all- 
important  to  Thebes  to  know  what  his  intentions  were  with  regard 
to  the  war  with  Sparta.  He  finally  declared  himself  on  the  Theban 
side,  and  when  the  campaign  of  371  B.C.  opened,  set  out  southward, 
announcing  that  he  was  about  to  join  Epaminondas;  but,  whether 
intentionally  or  not,  he  came  just  too  late  for  the  battle  of  Leuctra. 
When  he  arrived  he  refrained  from  attacking  the  Spartans,  and  ad- 
vised their  free  dismissal.  His  army  was  so  large  and  his  inten- 
tions so  doubtful  that  the  Thebans  did  not  breathe  freely  till  he 
had  departed.  It  did  not  reassure  them  to  learn  that  on  his  return 
march  he  had  sacked  the  Phocian  town  of  Hyampolis,  and  seized 
the  strong  fortress  of  Heraclea-Trachis,  the  outwork  of  the  pass  of 
Thermopylae. 

Uncertainty  as  to  the  future  conduct  of  Jason  kept  the  Theban 
Government  from  committing  itself  too  incautiously  to  the  prose- 
cution of  the  war  with  Sparta.  For  the  present  they  did  nothing 
more  than  make  things  sure  at  home.  Epaminondas  marched 
against  Orchomenus,  which  had  clung  to  Sparta  to  the  last,  and 
then  against  Thespiae,  whose  contingent  had  been  withheld  from 
the  army  that  fought  at  Leuctra.  Both  places  submitted;  then 
the  Thebans,  incensed  at  the  disloyalty  to  Boeotia  which  each  of 


438  GREECE 

370   B.C. 

them  had  displayed,  talked  of  putting  their  inhabitants  to  the 
sword.  But  Epaminondas  brought  his  countrymen  to  a  better 
mind ;  Orchomenus  was  merely  deprived  of  its  walls,  and  the 
Thespians  were  banished  instead  of  slain.  Meanwhile,  the  states 
which  bordered  on  Boeotia  had  taken  the  results  of  Leuctra  to 
heart ;  the  Phocians,  Locrians,  Euboeans,  Aetolians,  and  Arcana- 
nians  all  concluded  treaties  of  friendship  and  alliance  with  Thebes, 
and  promised  the  aid  of  their  troops  in  the  next  campaign  against 
Sparta. 

At  one  city  only  were  the  Theban  ambassadors  received  with 
coldness,  and  denied  a  friendly  hearing.  The  Athenians,  though 
they  had  so  lately  been  leagued  with  Thebes,  showed  marked  dis- 
gust at  the  complete  triumph  achieved  by  their  former  allies.  They 
would  have  preferred  a  balance  of  power  to  the  complete  triumph 
of  either  party. 

The  next  year  (370  B.C.)  was  crowded  with  important  events 
both  in  the  Peloponnesus  and  in  Northern  Greece.  When  the 
spring  came  round,  Jason  of  Pherae  announced  his  intention  of  ap- 
pearing at  Delphi  during  the  approaching  Pythian  festival.  Os- 
tensibly he  was  merely  about  to  do  sacrifice  to  Apollo  in  honor  of 
the  union  of  Thessaly,  and  countless  victims  were  collected  for  the 
hecatombs  which  were  to  mark  his  gratitude  to  Heaven.  But  he 
was  also  to  be  accompanied  by  a  large  army,  and  the  states  of 
Central  Greece  were  much  alarmed  at  the  prospect  of  his  arrival. 
The  Delphians  themselves  are  said  to  have  inquired  of  their  oracle 
"  what  they  were  to  do  if  Jason  touched  the  temple-treasure  " ; 
the  answer  came  that  "  the  god  himself  would  see  to  the  matter." 
And,  indeed,  Jason  never  reached  Delphi.  As  he  sat  in  state  at 
Pherae  giving  audience  to  petitioners,  seven  young  men  approached 
him  in  the  guise  of  litigants,  and  while  he  listened  to  them  sprang 
upon  him  and  slew  him  with  dagger  thrusts.  His  throne  fell  to  his 
brothers,  Polydorus  and  Polyphron,  men  of  little  merit  or  dis- 
tinction, who  showed  no  signs  of  carrying  out  his  ambitious 
schemes. 

Meanwhile  the  Peloponnesus  was  full  of  stir  and  change,  for 
the  ancient  state-system  of  the  peninsula  had  at  last  broken  up,  and 
in  many  districts  at  once  local  autonomy  was  asserted.  Tlie 
Mantineans  rebuilt  the  walls  which  had  been  cast  down  in  385  b.c. 
In  Tegea  civil  war  broke  out,  and  the  Laconizing  party  were 
massacred    by    their    opponents.      The    Eleians    took    the    field 


T  PI  E  B  A  N     r  R  E  D  0  M  I  N  A  N  C  E  439 

370   B.C. 

to  conquer  the  small  neighboring  states  whom  Sparta  had 
prevented  from  falling  into  their  hands.  In  Argos  the  confusion 
was  at  its  worst.  The  rival  factions,  however,  instead  of  com- 
bining to  declare  war  on  Sparta,  fell  to  blows  with  each  other; 
the  oligarchic  party  was  crushed,  and  the  democrats  began  a  series 
of  massacres,  in  which  no  less  than  twelve  hundred  citizens  were 
slain  without  any  pretense  of  trial  or  judgment.  This  slaughter 
known  as  "  the  reign  of  Club-law  "  (axuTaJ.'.fTp.6i^  was  the  worst  out- 
break of  mob  violence  ever  known  in  Greece,  and  cost  more  lives 
than  even  the  great  Corcyrean  sedition. 

For  the  first  time  in  their  history  the  Spartans  made  no  vig- 
orous attempt  to  strike  down  their  revolted  allies,  before  help  from 
the  north  should  reach  them.  The  ephors  found  themselves  re- 
duced to  the  resources  of  Laconia  alone,  and  were  unable  to  put 
more  than  a  few  thousand  troops  into  the  field,  for  many  of  the 
Perioeci  were  discovered  to  be  disaffected  and  untrustworthy.  So 
great  was  the  want  of  men  that  the  survivors  of  Leuctra  were 
allowed  to  retain  their  full  rights  of  citizenship,  which  they  had 
forfeited  by  their  flight  from  the  field;  but,  as  King  Ages- 
ilaus  observed,  "  on  this  one  occasion  the  laws  must  be  allowed  to 
sleep."  Only  one  stroke  was  attempted  against  the  rebel  states. 
Agesilaus,  though  now  sixty-seven  years  of  age,  led  a  small  army 
against  Mantinea.  So  low  were  the  spirits  of  the  Spartans  fallen 
that  he  was  considered  to  have  done  well  when  he  drove  the 
Mantineans  within  their  newly  built  walls,  and  ravaged  their 
territory. 

Isolated  revolts  of  Peloponnesian  towns  had  been  common 
enough,  and  if  the  rising  of  370  B.C.  had  been  like  those  of  421 
and  395  B.C.,  Sparta  might  have  hoped  for  better  days.  But  the 
rebel  towns  of  Arcadia  now  showed  a  disposition  which  they  had 
never  before  exhibited;  instead  of  striking  for  local  independence, 
they  began  to  federate  themselves.  Mantinea  and  Tegea,  acting 
for  once  in  union,  joined  with  well-nigh  all  the  smaller  states  in 
the  land  to  revive  the  ancient  Arcadian  League,  which  had  prac- 
tically ceased  to  exist  ever  since  Sparta  became  the  ruler  of  Pelopon- 
nesus,^ Nor  was  the  union  merely  formal ;  the  tribes  and  cities 
resolved  to  sacrifice  their  local  ties,  and  to  join  in  building  a  federal 

1  It  must  have  existed  in  some  purely  formal  fashion  till  about  430  B.C.,  as 
coins  are  found  bearing  its  title  down  to  that  date,  though  it  is  never  mentioned 
in  history  after  the  second  Messenian  vt'ar,  644  b.c. 


440  GREECE 

370   B.C. 

capital,  which  all  should  acknowledge  as  the  center  and  pledge  of 
Arcadian  unity.  A  spot  was  chosen  in  the  valley  of  the  Helisson, 
a  tributary  of  the  Alpheus,  in  the  largest  and  most  fertile  plain  of 
the  land,  and  there  the  ground-plan  of  a  spacious  city  was  marked 
out  by  a  body  of  commissioners  chosen  equally  from  the  various 
states.  They  named  it  Megalopolis,  "  the  great  city,"  as  an  augury 
of  its  future  strength  and  power.  Within  it  place  was  assigned  for 
settlers  from  various  parts  of  Arcadia,  while  the  Parrhasian  tribe — 
within  whose  •  boundaries  it  was  built — were  invited  to  remove 
thither  en  masse.  For  the  future  government  of  the  country,  it 
was  provided  that  a  numerous  delegation  from  each  city  should 
assemble  from  time  to  time  at  Megalopolis,  to  settle  all  federal  busi- 
ness :  this  body  was — unhappily  for  the  future  of  the  league — 
made  of  unwieldy  size,  no  less  than  ten  thousand  in  number.  '  In 
addition,  a  federal  army  and  revenue  was  established ;  the  states 
agreeing  to  tax  themselves  in  order  to  maintain  five  thousand  liop- 
lites,  called  the  Epanti,  as  a  standing  force.  Two  only  of  the 
Arcadian  states  adhered  to  Sparta  and  refused  to  come  into  the 
league — Heraea,  whose  former  prominence  in  Western  Arcadia  was 
overshadowed  by  the  new  capital ;  and  Orchomenus,  who  cherished 
an  ancestral  hatred  for  the  Mantineans.  Isolated  in  the  midst  of 
their  federalist  neighbors,  these  states  had  much  ado  to  preserve 
their  independence. 

In  the  late  summer  of  370  b.c.^  when  Central  Greece  had  been 
freed  from  all  danger  of  disturbance  by  the  death  of  Jason  of 
Pherae,  Epaminondas  led  down  into  the  Peloponnese  a  great 
army,  where  Locrians,  Euboeans,  Phocians,  and  all  the  other  new 
allies  of  Thebes  served  side  by  side  with  his  Boeotian  troops.  His 
arrival  served  to  show  which  states  had  finally  broken  with  Sparta, 
and  which  were  still  resolved  to  hold  with  their  old  suzerain.  The 
Arcadians,  Ele'ians,  and  Argives  at  once  joined  him  in  arms;  the 
Achaians  preserved  an  impassive  neutrality:  only  the  people  of 
Corinth,  Sicyon,  Epidaurus,  Hermione,  and  Phlius  shut  their  gates, 
and  maintained  their  loyalty  to  Sparta. 

Epaminondas  had  resolved  not  to  waste  time  in  reducing  the 
allies  of  Sparta,  but  to  march  straight  on  the  enemy's  stronghold 
in  the  valley  of  the  Eurotas,  and  bring  the  war  to  a  close  by 
crushing  the  Lacedaemonians  or  forcing  them  to  accept  terms 
of  peace.  The  Argives,  Eleians,  and  Arcadians  joined  him  at 
Mantinea,  and  the  invasion  of  Laconia  was  at  once  taken  in  hand. 


THE  BAN     PREDOMINANCE  441 

370  B.C. 

Not  less  than  seventy  thousand  men  set  out  on  the  expedition; 
it  was  the  largest  army  that  Greece  had  seen  since  the  muster 
at  Plataea  in  479  B.C.  The  season  was  late,  and  Epaminondas's 
legal  term  of  office  as  Boeotarch  w'as  just  at  its  end;  but  his  col- 
leagues, persuaded  by  Pelopidas,  agreed  to  continue  the  campaign 
under  his  leadership,  and  to  allow  him  the  glory  of  ending  the 
w^ork  which  he  had  begun  at  Leuctra. 

The  situation  of  the  Lacedaemonians  was  now  apparently 
hopeless.  Sparta  was  a  long  straggling  town,  unprotected  by  wall 
or  ditch ;  she  was  cut  off  from  her  few  remaining  allies,  unable  to 
put  two  thousand  citizens  into  the  field — so  low  had  the  number 
of  the  Spartiates  sunk — uncertain  even  how  far  she  might  depend  on 
her  own  Perioeci,  and  assailed  by  foes  who  had  the  grudges  of 
many  generations  to  satisfy.  Nevertheless  the  ephors  showed  no 
signs  of  yielding ;  once  more  they  gave  the  conduct  of  the  war  to 
Agesilaus,  and  bade  him  do  his  best.  Amid  the  wailing  of  the 
women,  "  who  had  never  before  seen  the  smoke  of  an  enemy's 
camp  fire,"  the  last  army  of  Lacedaemon  was  put  into  the  field. 
The  old  king,  in  spite  of  the  risk  of  rebellion,  promised  freedom  to 
every  Helot  who  should  take  up  arms — this  gave  him  six  thousand 
troops ;  he  called  out  such  of  the  Perioeci  as  were  faithful,  contrived 
to  gather  round  him  some  scanty  reinforcements  sent  from  Corinth 
and  Orchomenus,  and  stood  at  bay  behind  barricades  thrown  across 
the  outlets  of  the  town.  Resisting  with  equal  firmness  the  counsels 
of  the  timid,  who  bade  him  make  peace,  and  of  the  desperate,  who 
wished  to  sally  out  and  end  the  Spartan  race  in  a  new  Thermopylae, 
he  maintained  a  cautious  defensive  position.  Epaminondas  circled 
round  the  town,  looking  for  an  unguarded  entry,  but  every  street 
bristled  with  spears,  and  when  he  attempted  to  force  his  way  in, 
near  the  temple  of  the  Dioscuri,  he  met  with  a  bloody  repulse. 
Impressed  by  the  courage  of  the  enemy,  or  perhaps  unwilling  to 
"  put  out  one  of  the  eyes  of  Greece,"  the  Theban  passed  on  down 
the  Eurotas  valley  without  delivering  a  general  assault  on  the  town. 
Burning  village  after  village  of  the  Perioeci,  he  finally  came  to  the 
sea,  and  destroyed  Gytheum,  the  naval  arsenal  of  the  Spartans. 
Then,  turning  northwestward,  he  crossed  Mount  Taygetus  and 
passed  on  into  Messenia. 

Here  he  had  a  long-projected  task  to  execute.  Before  the 
invasion  began,  he  had  proclaimed  his  intention  of  rescuing  Mes- 
senia from  the  Spartan  yoke  and  re-establishing  its  ancient  inde- 


442  GREECE 

369  B.C. 

pendence.  He  had  summoned  to  his  side  the  descendants  of  the 
Messenians  who  had  been  driven  by  Lysander  from  Naupactus 
and  even  those  of  the  earher  exiles  who  had  settled  in  Sicily.  Now 
he  was  able  to  fulfill  his  promise:  marching  to  Mount  Ithome, 
the  ancient  sanctuary  and  citadel  of  the  land,  where  Aris- 
todemus  had  fortified  himself  in  the  first  Messenian  war,  he 
laid  the  foundations  of  a  city  on  its  southern  slope,  and  marked 
out  the  walls  of  an  Acropolis  on  its  summit.  The  Helots 
rose  in  arms  to  join  their  exiled  brethren  who  had  returned 
from  the  west,  and  all  united  to  hail  Epaminondas  as  the  founder 
of  a  new  nation.  Messene  became  the  sister-town  of  Megalopolis, 
and  exhibited  a  strength  and  vigor  to  which  the  Arcadian  city 
never  attained.  From  the  first  the  new  foundation  completely 
served  its  purpose ;  the  power  of  Sparta  now  stopped  short  at  Mount 
Taygetus,  and  the  old  masters  of  Messenia  were  never  able  even  for 
a  moment  to  reconquer  the  lands  of  their  revolted  serfs. 

The  spring  of  369  B.C.  was  already  at  hand  when  Epaminondas 
returned  from  his  Peloponnesian  expedition.  He  had  thus  out- 
stayed the  legal  term  of  his  office  by  nearly  four  months — an 
informality  for  which  his  political  opponents  in  Thebes  endeavored 
to  impeach  him  on  his  arrival ;  but  they  were  hooted  down  by  tlie 
voice  of  public  approval,  and  Epaminondas  was  re-elected  Boeotarch 
for  the  current  year. 

Athens,  as  we  have  already  mentioned,  had  received  with 
marked  disfavor  the  news  of  the  battle  of  Leuctra ;  but  sullen 
though  she  might  appear  at  the  success  of  her  late  allies,  it  Vv^as  not 
expected  that  her  envy  would  lead  her  into  breaking  off  all  her 
recent  ties,  and  joining  herself  to  the  waning  cause  of  Sparta. 
Such,  nevertheless,  was  to  be  the  case ;  after  endeavoring  in  vain 
to  induce  the  Peloponnesian  cities  to  form  a  league  of  neutrals,  in- 
stead of  joining  the  Theban  alliance,  she  finally  took  the  decisive 
step  of  receiving  a  Spartan  embassy  which  came  Vo  pray  for  help. 
All  the  old  pleas  that  Cimon  had  cited  in  a  similar  crisis  just 
a  hundred  years  before  were  adduced  to  move  the  pity  of  the 
Athenians,  and  fell  upon  not  unwilling  ears.  The  Ecclesia  by 
a  large  majority  voted  an  alliance  with  Sparta,  and  Iphicrates — 
now  well  advanced  in  years,  but  still  able  to  take  the  field — was 
commissioned  to  lead  an  Athenian  contingent  into  the  Pelopon- 
nesus. The  terms  of  accommodation  with  Sparta,  in  order  to  mark 
the  absolute  e(|uality  of  the  two  contracting  powers,  contained  the 


THEBAN    PREDOMINANCE  443 

369    B.C. 

absurd  provision  that  the  command  of  the  alHed  forces,  both  by 
sea  and  land,  should  be  entrusted  alternately  to  Spartan  and  Athe- 
nian officers  at  intervals  of  five  days. 

The  strength  of  the  new  treaty  was  put  to  the  test  when 
Epaminondas  set  out  for  a  second  invasion  of  Peloponnesus  in  the 
summer  of  369  b.c.^  about  three  months  after  the  conclusion  of 
the  first  raid.  The  allies  resolved  to  endeavor  to  hold  the  line  of 
the  Isthmus  against  him.  Accordingly  they  hastily  repaired  the 
old  rampart  which  ran  from  sea  to  sea,  and  set  themselves  to  guard 
the  two  roads  which  led  to  it,  the  Athenians  holding  the  eastern 
path  along  the  gulf  of  Aegina,  the  Lacedaemonians  the  western  one 
on  the  shore  of  the  gulf  of  Corinth.  But  Epaminondas,  by  a 
skillful  attack  made  in  the  dusk  of  dawn,  completely  broke  through 
the  line  on  the  Spartan  side,  and  made  his  way  into  the  peninsula. 
The  Arcadians,  Argives,  and  Eleians  marched  up  to  join  him,  and 
their  united  army  laid  siege  to  Sicyon,  one  of  Sparta's  few  remain- 
ing allies.  That  city  ere  long  opened  its  gates  to  them ;  but  they 
were  less  successful  in  an  attempt  on  Epidaurus,  and  suffered  a 
decided  reverse  when  they  attempted  to  take  by  surprise  the  great 
and  strong  city  of  Corinth.  Here  Epaminondas  was  brought  to  a 
standstill ;  the  enemy  refused  to  give  battle,  but  were  yet  so  strong 
— they  had  just  been  reinforced  by  some  mercenary  troops  sent  by 
Dionysius  of  Syracuse — and  so  firmly  based  on  the  fortress  in  their 
rear,  that  they  could  not  he  neglected.  Hence  the  summer  went 
by  without  any  decisive  event,  and  all  that  Epaminondas  had  gained 
was  the  possession  of  Sicyon,  and  the  security  that  Messene  and 
Megalopolis  might  finish  their  walls  unmolested,  while  the  Lace- 
daemonian army  was  employed  in  the  north.  On  his  return  home 
he  was  coldly  received,  and  not  re-elected  Boeotarch.^ 

The  next  year  saw  Thebes  engaged  in  a  new  series  of  com- 
plications, which  distracted  her  attention  from  the  affairs  of 
Peloponnesus,  and  caused  her  to  strike  less  vigorous  blows  against 
Sparta  than  she  would  otherwise  have  done.  Polyphron  and  Poly- 
dorus,  the  brothers  of  Jason  of  Pherae,  had  met  with  violent  deaths, 
and  their  place  was  now  held  by  their  kinsman,  Alexander.-*^  The 
new  tyrant  was  not  destitute  of  ability,  but  he  was  so  reckless  and 

2  His  enemies  accused  him  of  having  spared  the  flying  Spartans  in  the  fight 
at  the  Isthmus,  when  he  might  have  slain  them  all — a  charge  rather  to  his  credit 
than  otherwise. 

3  Son-in-law  of  Jason  and  also  a  distant  relative. 


444  GREECE 

363   B.C. 

savage  that  he  soon  shattered  the  confederacy  which  Jason  had 
taken  so  many  years  to  organize.  The  nobles  of  Larissa  broke  out 
into  rebelHon,  and  called  in  the  king  of  Macedonia  to  their  help, 
so  that  for  the  first  time  in  history  Macedonian  troops  were  seen 
within  the  borders  of  Hellas.  Other  towns  summoned  Thebes  to 
their  aid.  Disregarding  their  old  alliance  with  Jason,  the  Thebans 
sent  an  army  across  Mount  Othrys,  to  settle  the  affairs  of  Thessaly. 
Pelopidas,  who  was  in  command,  drove  the  Macedonians  from 
Larissa,  and  compelled  the  tyrant  of  Pherae  to  acknowledge  the 
independence  of  the  cities  which  had  revolted  fromi  him  (368  e.g.). 
But  this  interference  was  to  be  the  beginning  of  many  troubles  for 
Thebes.  Alexander  never  forgave  it,  and  waited  his  opportunity 
for  revenge.  When  Thessaly  was  quiet,  Pelopidas  marched  on  into 
Macedonia,  and  compelled  its  monarch  to  conclude  peace,  and  to 
give  as  hostages  for  his  fidelity  thirty  noble  youths,  including  his 
own  brother  Philip,  destined  just  thirty  years  after  to  enter  Thebes 
as  a  conqueror  instead  of  a  captive. 

While  the  Theban  arms  were  occupied  in  the  north,  the  war  in 
Peloponnesus  had  not  slackened.  But  its  incidents  had  not  been 
such  as  Epaminondas  would  have  desired.  The  two  chief  allies  of 
Thebes — Arcadia  and  Elis — fell  to  strife  over  the  allegiance  of  the 
Triphylians,  whom  the  former  acknowledged  as  members  of  their 
league,  while  the  latter  claimed  them  as  ancient  subjects.  The 
Arcadians  were  thus  left  unaided,  when  their  general,  Lycomedes 
of  Mantinea,  took  the  field  against  the  Spartans.  After  obtaining 
two  considerable  successes  Lycomedes  found  himself  faced  at 
Midea  by  a  Laconian  army  under  Archidamus,  the  son  of  King 
Agesilaus,  a  young  man  who  possessed  all  the  vigor  and  some  of 
the  genius  of  his  father.  The  Arcadians  suffered  a  complete  de- 
feat, which  was  rendered  very  bloody  by  a  body  of  Celts,  lent  to 
the  enemy  by  Dionysius  of  Syracuse,  who  gave  no  quarter  to  the 
flying  masses.  Of  the  native  Spartans  not  one  man  fell,  hence 
they  named  their  victory  "  The  Tearless  Battle"  (368  B.C.). 

The  Thebans  did  not  appear  to  avenge  the  slaughter  of  their 
allies,  because  they  had  other  work  in  hand  in  the  north.  Alex- 
ander of  Plierae  had  just  kidnaped  Pelopidas,  and  thrown  him  into 
prison,  as  he  was  passing  through  Thessaly  on  state  business.  To 
rescue  their  favorite  general,  the  Thebans  sent  seven  thousand  men 
against  the  tyrant;  but  this  force  suffered  a  check,  and  only  escaped 
destruction  because  its  leaders  besought   Epaminondas,   who  was 


THE  BAN    PREDOMINANCE  445 

368-367   B.C. 

serving  in  the  ranks  as  a  mere  hoplite,  to  take  the  command  out  of 
their  hands,  and  rescue  the  army.  That  great  general  extricated 
the  troops,  and  got  them  safely  back  through  the  passes  of  Othrys. 
On  hearing  of  this  mismanaged  business,  the  Theban  assembly 
deposed  the  incompetent  generals,  fined  each  of  them  ten  thousand 
drachmae,  and  gave  the  command  to  Epaminondas.  After  re- 
ceiving reinforcements  he  marched  again  into  Thessaly,  and  in  a 
few  days  reduced  Alexander  to  such  straits  that  he  surrendered 
Pelopidas  and  asked  for  terms  of  peace  (winter  of  368-7). 

The  result  of  the  "  Tearless  Battle  "  raised  the  Spartans  from 
the  hopeless  dejection  into  which  they  had  fallen  since  Leuctra, 
and  encouraged  them  to  persevere  with  the  war.  They  were  also 
buoyed  up  by  hopes  of  aid  from  Persia,  for  Ariobarzanes,  satrap 
of  the  Hellespont,  had  just  sent  them  a  sum  of  m.oney  and  two 
thousand  mercenary  troops.  But  their  expectations  from  this  quar- 
ter were  not  fulfilled;  in  the  next  year  the  Thebans  sent  Pelopidas 
as  ambassador  to  Susa,  and  induced  the  Great  King  to  withdraw 
his  patronage  from  Sparta  and  transfer  it  to  themselves.  The  send- 
ing of  this  embassy  was  one  of  the  few  unworthy  steps  taken  by 
Thebes  during  her  hegemony;  for  she  utilized  the  favor  of  King 
Artaxerxes  II.  by  getting  him  to  issue  a  rescript,  in  which,  as 
guarantor  of  the  terms  of  the  peace  of  Antalcidas,  he  presumed  to 
dictate  to  the  Greeks,  and  commanded  the  Arcadians  to  relinquish 
their  pretensions  against  EHs,  the  Lacedaemonians  to  acknowledge 
the  independence  of  Messene,  and  the  Athenians  to  lay  up  their  war 
navy.  Naturally  the  states  concerned  disregarded  these  commands ; 
for,  as  Antiochus  the  Arcadian  indignantly  remarked,  "  the  Great 
King  has  an  infinite  number  of  bakers,  cooks,  cup-bearers,  and  door- 
keepers, but  of  men  fit  to  face  Greek  hoplites  not  one."  But 
though  Artaxerxes  was  weak  and  far  away,  the  Thebans  were 
strong  and  near  at  hand,  and  their  arms  were  ready  to  support  the 
terms  of  the  rescript. 

In  367  B.C.  Epaminondas,  now  again  Boeotarch,  made  his  third 
inroad  into  Peloponnesus.  Concerting  measures  with  the  Argives, 
he  forced  the  lines  of  Corinth  by  a  joint  attack  from  outside  and 
from  within.  Then  marching  into  Achaia  he  induced  its  cities — 
who  had  hitherto  been  neutral — to  join  the  Theban  alliance,  on  the 
understanding  that  their  internal  constitution  should  not  be  meddled 
with.  The  Theban  Government,  however,  broke  these  terms,  and 
sent  garrisons  and  harmosts  into  the  towns,  in  spite  of  the  remon- 


446  G  R  E  E  C  K 

397    D.C. 

strances  of  Epaminondas.  This  ill-faith  had  its  deserts,  for  the 
Achaians  soon  rose  in  arms,  drove  out  their  garrisons,  and  joined 
the  Spartans  as  zealous  allies ;  thus  the  results  of  the  campaign  of 
367  B.C.  were  entirely  wasted.  But  the  Thebans  were  perhaps 
consoled  by  a  fortunate  chance,  which  enabled  them  in  the  same 
autumn  to  seize  Oropus,  the  frontier  town  of  Attica,  on  the  Euboic 
Strait — a  place  over  which  Boeotian  and  Athenian  had  waged 
countless  conflicts. 

This  loss  greatly  irritated  the  Athenians,  who  called  on  their 
Peloponnesian  allies  to  aid  them  to  recover  Oropus ;  but  the 
Spartans  and  Corinthians  had  too  much  to  occupy  them  at  home, 
and  refused  to  stir.  Their  apathy  provoked  the  Athenians  into  a 
treacherous  attempt  to  seize  the  Acropolis  of  Corinth,  which  met 
with  a  well-deserved  failure.  The  incident,  however,  so  frightened 
the  Corinthians  that  they  retired  from  the  war,  obtaining  from 
Thebes  terms  which  allowed  them  to  preserve  neutrality.  Their 
neighbors  of  Phlius  and  Epidaurus  at  once  followed  their 
example. 

Sparta  would  have  felt  the  defection  of  Corinth  very  deeply, 
if  she  had  not  succeeded  in  replacing  her  by  Elis,  a  yet  more  power- 
ful ally.  The  Eleians  and  Arcadians,  after  four  years'  bickering 
about  their  frontiers,  had  at  last  broken  into  open  w^ar.  As  Ar- 
cadia was  violently  hostile  to  Sparta,  the  Eleians  immediately  made 
peace  and  alliance  w'ith  that  power.  This  somewhat  changed  the 
aspect  of  affairs  in  Peloponnesus ;  the  friends  of  Thebes — Argos, 
Arcadia,  and  Messene — being  no  longer  much  more  powerful  than 
her  enemies — Achaia,  Elis,  Lacedaemon.  The  first  conflicts  of  the 
new  war,  however,  were  decidedly  in  favor  of  the  Arcadians,  and 
next  year  they  felt  themselves  so  strong  that  they  ventured  on  an 
action  wdiich  had  not  been  attempted  since  the  days  of  Pheidon  of 
Argos,  three  hundred  years  ago.  It  was  the  year  of  the  Olympic 
festival,  and  the  usual  multitude  had  gathered  from  every  part 
of  the  Greek  world  to  attend  the  great  celebration.  When  the 
opening  day  drew  near,  the  Arcadians  marched  down  the  Alpheus 
valley,  and  seized  Olympia,  proclaiming  that  they,  and  not  the 
Eleians,  should  for  the  future  preside  over  the  games.  Tliis 
roused  Elis  to  f-ury;  the  whole  force  of  the  state,  strengthened  l3y 
volunteers  from  Achaia,  moved  on  Olympia,  where  they  found  a 
large  Arcadian  and  Argive  army  waiting  to  oppose  them.  In  the 
midst  of  the  festival — "  the  chariot  race  was  over,  and  the  wrestlers 


T  H  E  B  A  N    PREDOMINANCE  447 

363    B.C. 

were  contending  between  the  stadium  and  the  altar  " — the  Eleians 
burst  into  the  sacred  precincts,  driving  the  routed  Arcadians  before 
them.  But  the  latter  rallied  among  the  buildings,  casting  missiles 
from  the  porticos  and  from  the  roof  of  the  great  temple  of  Zeus, 
and  at  last  brought  the  Eleians  to  a  standstill.  Next  day  the  con- 
flict was  renewed,  the  Arcadians  defending-  themselves  behind  bar- 
ricades composed  of  the  costly  tents  and  booths  which  the  holiday- 
making  public  had  erected.  They  finally  drove  off  the  enemy,  and 
completed  the  interrupted  festival ;  but  no  blessing  rested  on  a 
triumph  which  the  majority  of  the  Hellenes  regarded  as  sacri- 
legious, since  the  Eleians  were  the  rightful  guardians  of  the 
sanctuary. 

To  maintain  their  hold  on  Olympia  and  protect  the  subjects  of 
Elis  whom  they  had  taken  into  their  league,  the  Arcadians  found 
themselves  compelled  to  keep  their  standing  army,  the  five  thou- 
sand Epariti,  continually  in  the  field.  This  cost  so  much  money 
that  the  finances  of  the  confederacy  gave  out,  and  in  a  moment  of 
need  the  generals  laid  hands  on  the  temple  treasure  at  Olympia, 
and  expended  much  of  it  on  pay  and  warlike  stores.  The  majority 
of  the  federal  council  voted  approval  of  the  measure,  but  several 
states — chief  among  them  the  great  town  of  Mantinea — refused  to 
condone  the  sacrilege.  Thus  strife  arose  in  Arcadia.  The  council 
ordered  the  imprisonment  of  the  magistrates  of  Mantinea,  on  which 
that  city  shut  its  gates  against  the  troops  of  the  league.  Public 
opinion,  however,  was  so  much  on  the  side  of  the  Mantineans  that 
the  majority  submitted,  and  not  only  acknowledged  their  fault, 
but  actually  made  peace  with  Elis,  restoring  Olympia  and  relin- 
quishing all  claims  to  its  guardianship  (363  B.C.). 

The  Arcadians  concluded  this  peace  without  asking  or  obtain- 
ing the  consent  of  their  allies  of  Thebes,  although  they  had  Boeotian 
troops  serving  in  their  midst.  This  slight  was  deeply  felt  by  the 
Thebans ;  even  the  equably-minded  Epaminondas  denounced  it  as 
little  better  than  treachery.  But  their  indignation  carried  them 
into  unjustifiable  lengths;  a  Theban  officer,  conspiring  with  the 
magistrates  of  Tegea,  seized  and  threw  into  prison  a  number  of  the 
notables  of  Mantinea  and  other  places,  who  were  visiting  Tegea  for 
a  feast  in  commemoration  of  the  peace  with  Elis.  The  prisoners 
were  soon  released,  but  the  mischief  was  done,  and  the  reparation 
came  too  late,  for  Mantinea  made  peace  with  Sparta  and  broke 
away  from  the  Arcadian  League. 


448  GREECE 

362  B.C. 

This  crisis  startled  the  Thebans,  and  roused  them  into  sending 
a  great  army  into  Peloponnesus  in  the  next  spring.  Epaminondas 
once  more  headed  it,  but  his  old  colleague  was  no  longer  at  his  side ; 
Pelopidas  had  fallen  in  battle  a  few  months  before.  For  the  third 
time  Alexander  of  Pherae  had  come  into  conflict  with  Thebes,  and 
Pelopidas,  burning  to  avenge  the  personal  insults  the  tyrant  had 
put  upon  him  in  368  B.C.,  had  obtained  permission  to  lead  the 
attack  upon  him.  As  his  army  left  the  gates  of  Thebes  an  eclipse 
occurred,  and  the  soothsayers  forbade  the  expedition  to  proceed. 
Unable  to  get  the  men  to  follow,  Pelopidas  rode  off  almost  alone 
to  Thessaly,  and  summoned  the  subjects  of  Alexander  to  revolt 
against  their  master.  The  moment  that  he  had  been  joined  by  a 
few  thousand  men  he  marched  to  attack  Pherae.  The  tyrant  met 
him  at  Cynoscephalae  with  a  great  army  of  mercenaries  which 
doubled  the  forces  of  the  insurgents.  But  the  vigor  of  Pelopidas 
carried  all  before  it;  he  broke  the  enemy,  and  was  pressing  them 
hard,  when  he  caught  sight  of  Alexander  endeavoring  to  rally  his 
guards.  Forgetting  the  duty  of  a  general,  Pelopidas  sprang  for- 
ward to  cut  the  tyrant  down,  but  he  was  encompassed  and  slain 
before  his  follow^ers  could  force  their  w^ay  to  his  help.  The  Thes- 
salians  mourned  him  as  the  founder  of  their  liberty,  and  buried  him 
with  great  pomp  on  the  scene  of  his  last  victory,  Alexander  was 
stripped  of  all  his  possessions  save  Pherae,  and  reduced  to  impo- 
tence; shortly  afterwards  he  was  murdered  by  his  wife  and  his 
brothers-in-law. 

For  the  Peloponnesian  campaign  of  362  B.C.  both  sides  mus- 
tered in  great  strength,  Epaminondas  crossed  the  Isthmus  with  a 
great  host  of  Boeotians,  Thessalians,  Euboeans,  and  was  joined  at 
Nemea  by  the  full  force  of  Argos.  Then  turning  west  he  picked 
up  the  contingents  of  the  Arcadian  League  and  Messene,  and  ad- 
vanced with  thirty  thousand  men  to  Tegea.  In  that  position  he  lay 
between  Sparta  and  her  new  allies,  the  Mantineans,  and  forced  them 
to  communicate  with  each  other  by  circuitous  and  difficult  mountain 
ways.  However,  the  Lacedaemonians  resolved  to  succor  ]Mantinea ; 
they  placed  the  aged  Agesilaus  once  more  in  command,  and  dis- 
patched him  with  their  whole  available  force  to  join  their  allies. 
On  this  movement  Epaminondas  had  calculated.  When  he  heard 
that  Agesilaus  was  well  started  on  his  long  march,  he  broke  up  his 
camp  at  Tegea  and  pounced  upon  Sparta.  He  was  within  an  ace 
of  taking  the  city  without  a  blow,  "  like  a  nest  when  the  parent- 


THEBAN    PREDOMINANCE  449 

362  B.C. 

birds  are  away/'  ^  but  his  clever  combination  was  frustrated  by 
treachery.  A  deserter  left  the  Theban  camp  by  night  and  reached 
Agesilaus,  to  whom  he  revealed  the  whole  scheme.  The  old  king 
hurried  back  at  full  speed,  and  by  superhuman  exertions  reached 
Sparta  just  before  the  enemy  arrived.  Now,  as  in  370  B.C.,  he 
occupied  the  main  outlets  with  troops,  and  stood  on  the  defensive. 
Epaminondas,  attacking  several  points  at  once,  succeeded  in  thrust- 
ing one  column  as  far  as  the  market-place ;  but  as  the  others  were 
repelled,  he  was  forced  to  withdraw,  and  to  give  up  all  hopes  of 
taking  the  town  by  assault. 

Hastily  changing  his  plan  of  operations,  the  Theban  now 
resolved  to  make  a  dash  at  Mantinea,  before  the  Spartans  had  time 
to  reinforce  it.  Accordingly  his  army  slipped  away  by  night,  and 
marched  on  the  unsuspecting  city.  But  chance  again  intervened ; 
the  Athenians  had  dispatched  a  considerable  contingent,  some  six 
thousand  men,  to  join  the  Spartans,  and  the  cavalry  at  the  head  of 
this  army  had  entered  Mantinea  just  before  the  Theban  horse  ap- 
peared before  its  gates.  Though  weary  with  their  march — they 
had  come  forty  miles  by  mountain  roads  that  day — the  Athenians 
sallied  out,  and  fell  upon  the  enemy  with  such  vigor  that  they  drove 
them  back  on  Tegea. 

The  Spartans  had  followed  Epaminondas,  and  now  slipped 
past  him  and  joined  the  Mantineans  and  Athenians.  A  force  from 
Elis  and  Achaia  also  arrived,  so  that  the  allies  mustered  twenty 
thousand  foot  and  two  thousand  horse — an  army  less  by  one-third 
than  that  of  the  Theban,  yet  capable,  under  cautious  management, 
of  keeping  him  in  check.  But  rash  counsels  prevailed  in  the  camp, 
for  the  Mantinean  generals  wished  to  fight,  to  preserve  their  terri- 
tory from  plunder.  Accordingly,  when  Epaminondas  advanced 
from  Tegea,  the  allied  host  drew  itself  up  and  offered  him 
battle,  their  right  w'ing  resting  on  Mantinea,  their  left  on  a  wooded 
height  to  the  southward.  The  Mantineans  and  Spartans  held  the 
right,  the  place  of  honor,  the  Athenians  the  left,  w^hile  the  Eleians 
and  Achaians  formed  the  center;  they  were  drawn  out  in  a  con- 
tinuous line  with  a  thousand  cavalry  on  each  flank. 

Epaminondas  had  advanced  from  Tegea  somewhat  late  in  the 
day,  and  when  the  enemy  saw  him  holding  back  and  halting  his 
men  beneath  the  hills  which  face  Mantinea,  they  made  the  errone- 
ous but  natural  deduction  that  he  was  not  about  to  fight  till  the 

*  Xenophon,    Hellen.    vii.    5,   8. 


450  GREECE 

362   B.C. 

morrow.  Accordingly  the  ranks  of  the  hoplites  were  broken,  and 
the  horsemen  began  to  unbridle  their  horses.  The  Theban  had 
expected  something  of  the  kind,  and  when  he  saw  the  enemy  about 
to  retire,  suddenly  flung  his  army  upon  them  at  a  run. 

His  order  of  battle  was  the  same  which  had  given  him  victory 
at  Leuctra.  The  bulk  of  the  cavalry  were  massed  on  his  left ;  next 
came  a  heavy  column  of  Boeotians,  many  shields  deep,  which  ad- 
vanced parallel  with  the  cavalry;  while  the  center  and  right  wing, 
composed  of  the  Arcadians,  Argives,  and  Messenians,  hung  back, 
and  moved  more  slowly.  The  Euboeans,  formed  in  a  detached 
body,  climbed  the  hill  on  the  enemy's  right,  and  threatened  the 
flank  of  the  Athenians. 

All  went  as  Epaminondas  had  wished.  His  cavalry  on  the 
left  drove  the  Spartan  horse  out  of  the  field;  next  the  Boeotian 
column,  which  he  himself  headed,  plowed  through  the  Mantinean 
and  Spartan  ranks  "  as  a  war-galley  plows  through  the  waves 
with  its  beak."  ^  But  a  desperate  Spartan  named  Anticrates,  stand- 
ing firm  among  his  fiying  comrades,  singled  out  the  great  general, 
and  thrust  him  through  the  breast  with  his  pike.  When  the  news 
ran  down  the  line  that  Epaminondas  had  fallen,  his  victorious  troops 
halted  in  their  career  and  made  no  attempt  to  complete  the  victory. 
Indeed,  they  allowed  the  Athenians  to  gain  some  advantage  on  the 
extreme  right,  a  success  on  which  the  allies  afterwards  grounded 
a  preposterous  claim  of  victory  in  the  main  battle. 

Epaminondas  was  carried  out  of  the  fight  with  the  broken 
spear  still  fast  in  his  wound.  His  attendants  bore  him  to  a  rising 
ground  in  the  rear,  which  commanded  the  whole  battlefield.  When 
he  recovered  consciousness  he  asked  if  his  shield  was  safe,  and  cast 
his  dying  eyes  over  the  scene.  He  sent  in  haste  for  lolaidas  and 
Daiphantus,  his  destined  successors  in  command;  the  answer  came 
that  both  had  been  slain.  "  Then,"  said  the  dying  hero,  "  you  had 
better  make  peace."  So  saying,  he  bade  the  spear-head  be  drawn 
from  his  wound ;  a  flow  of  blood  followed,  and  he  breathed  his 
last. 

So. died  Epaminondas,  and  with  him  the  greatness  of  Thebes; 
never  were  the  fortunes  of  a  city  and  its  leading  statesman  more 
closely  bound  together.  The  Thebans  themselves  seem  to  have 
looked  to  the  future  with  dread,  for  they  obeyed  their  general's 
dying  words,  and  concluded  a  peace  with  their  enemies  ere  the 

^  Xenophon.  Hcllcn.  vii.  5.   23. 


THEBAN    PREDOMINANCE  451 

362  B.C. 

summer  was  over.  Athens,  Elis,  Achaia,  and  Mantinea  signed  on 
the  one  side;  Thebes,  Argos,  and  the  Arcadian  League  on  the 
other.  Sparta  had  to  be  left  out  of  the  agreement,  for  the  ephors 
obstinately  refused  to  acknowledge  the  independence  of  ]\Iessene. 
The  great  war,  however,  was  at  an  end,  and  the  noise  of  arms 
which  had  sounded  all  over  Greece  died  away  into  a  petty  bickering 
for  border-forts  on  the  slopes  of  Taygetus. 


Chapter   XLI 

THE  PEACE  OF  362  B.C.  TO  PHILIP'S  INVASION, 
362-352  B.C. 

THE  predominance  which  Thebes  had  enjoyed  in  Greece  for 
the  nine  years  which  followed  the  battle  of  Leuctra  had 
never  amounted  to  a  formal  hegemony,  like  that  which 
Sparta  had  once  exercised.  Nor  had  it  involved  the  organization 
of  a  large  body  of  strictly  dependent  allies,  such  as  Athens  had 
gathered  around  her  in  the  days  of  the  Confederacy  of  Delos. 
Thebes  had  taken  the  lead  merely  because  she  was  the  strongest 
state  among  the  enemies  of  Sparta,  the  central  power  on  which 
the  others  leant  for  support.  Epaminondas,  the  guiding  spirit  of 
the  time,  had  deliberately  accepted  this  position,  and  labored  to 
make  his  native  city  not  a  "  tyrant  state,"  but  the  first  among  many 
equals. 

When,  therefore,  the  war  came  to  an  end,  after  the  battle  of 
Mantinea,  the  Greek  states  found  themselves  lacking  an  acknowl- 
edged leader,  and  went  each  upon  its  own  way,  without  having 
to  pay  regard  to  the  wishes  of  any  suzerain  or  superior.  The  his- 
tory of  the  succeeding  period,  therefore,  was  singularly  destitute  of 
unity  and  cohesion. 

In  Peloponnesus  the  annals  of  the  next  few  years  are  almost 
a  blank.  Since  Sparta  had  ceased  to  be  the  center  of  Greece,  the 
tale  of  her  petty  wars  with  her  neighbors  seems  to  have  ceased  to 
interest  the  historians  of  the  ancient  world.  Especially  was  this  so 
after  the  death  of  the  aged  Agesilaus,  the  last  link  which  connected 
her  with  the  glorious  past.  That  great  warrior  died  not  in  the 
valley  of  the  Eurotas,  but  on  the  sands  of  Libya.  Sparta  was  in 
dire  need  of  money  for  her  war  with  Messene,  and  when  Tachos — 
an  Egyptian  prince  who  had  rebelled  against  Persia — offered  her 
subsidies  in  return  for  a  force  of  Greek  hoplites,  Agesilaus  coun- 
seled the  acceptance  of  the  tender.  He  went  to  Egypt  himself  with 
the  promised  succors,  and  at  the  age  of  eighty-four  conducted  his 
last  campaign  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile.  Having  quarreled  with 
Tachos,  he  deposed  him  in  favor  of  his  cousin  Nectanebis,  who 

452 


PHILIP'S    INVASION  453 

361-353    B.C. 

thereupon  presented  him  with  two  hundred  and  thirty  talents  for 
his  services.  Agesilaus  set  out  to  take  the  money  home,  but  died 
on  the  way  in  a  desert  haven  on  the  Libyan  coast.  In  spite  of  all 
his  courage  and  skill,  he  had  been  the  evil  genius  of  his  country, 
and  had  brought  upon  her  all  the  woes  that  the  oracle  had  fore- 
told *  for  the  "lame  reign"   (winter  of  361-360). 

Among  the  other  Peloponnesian  states  the  Arcadian  League 
should  have  taken  the  first  place.  But  that  bod)'-  practically  went 
to  pieces  within  twenty  years  of  its  foundation,  owing  to  the 
jealousy  which  the  older  towns  felt  for  Megalopolis,  the  new  federal 
capital.  That  city  was  so  left  to  itself  that  in  353  B.C.  it  succumbed 
to  an  attack  of  the  Spartans,  and  was  only  restored  to  freedom  by 
the  aid  of  a  Theban  army.  The  elder  states  so  systematically 
sapped  the  strength  of  their  younger  rival  that  at  last,  as  a  sarcastic 
poet  observed,  "  the  great  city  became  a  great  desert ''  ( lpriiJ.ia 
ixeyaXrj'oziv  ij  ShyaXdrroXi?) .  With  no  leader  or  suzerain  to  check  their 
bickerings,  the  Arcadians  soon  reduced  themselves  to  a  state  of 
complete  insignificance. 

A  new  evil  began  to  appear  in  Peloponnesus  about  this  time, 
in  the  form  of  desperate  attempts  at  the  establishment  of  tyrannies. 
The  success  of  Dionysius  of  Syracuse  on  one  side  of  the  sea,  and  of 
Jason  of  Pherae  on  the  other,  set  many  ambitious  men  on  the  old 
tack,  though  tyrants  had  practically  ceased  out  of  the  land  for  two 
hundred  years.  Euphron  of  Sicyon  was  the  first  who  attempted 
to  enslave  his  country  by  force  of  arms ;  he  failed  and  was  assassi- 
nated (367  B.C.).  Timophanes  of  Corinth  (circ.  360  B.C.)  won 
a  greater  celebrity  from  the  circumstances  of  his  death.  After  he 
had  safely  established  himself  in  power,  his  brother  Timoleon  and 
two  of  his  friends  obtained  an  interview  with  him.  When  they 
were  in  private,  they  solemnly  summoned  him  to  give  up  the 
tyranny;  when  he  refused,  Timoleon  stepped  aside  and  wrapped 
his  face  in  his  mantle,  while  the  other  two  cut  his  brother  down. 
Thus  Corinth  recovered  her  liberty.  Other  cities  in  other  parts  of 
Greece  were  not  so  fortunate;  Euboea,  in  particular,  fell  almost 
entirely  into  the  hands  of  tyrants. 

Of  the  various  states  which  had  engaged  in  the  war  of  371-362 
B.c.^  Athens  had,  with  the  exception  of  Thebes,  fared  the  best. 
Although  she  had  lost  Oropus,  she  made  conquests  of  far  greater 
worth;  in  365  B.C.  she  had  succeeded  in  conquering  Samos,  which 

1  See  p.  392. 


454  GREECE 

365-357   B.C. 

had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  Persia,  but,  instead  of  freeing  her  old 
allies,  established  in  the  island  a  large  cleruchy  of  her  poorer  citi- 
zens. She  had  also  picked  up  a  good  many  outlying  possessions 
on  the  north  coast  of  the  Aegean,  including  part  of  the  Thracian 
Chersonese,  the  Macedonian  towns  of  Pydna  and  Methone,  and  the 
more  important  city  of  Potidaea.  Since  the  final  ruin  of  Sparta, 
Athens  remained  the  only  naval  power  in  Greece ;  for  Thebes, 
though  so  powerful  on  land,  only  once  sent  a  fleet  to  sea  (363  b.c). 
If  the  Athenians  had  been  wise,  they  would  have  admitted  the  towns 
they  had  lately  conquered  into  the  maritime  league  which  they  had 
founded  in  378  B.C.  But  the  old  memories  of  the  Confederacy  of 
Delos  were  their  bane;  they  were  never  able  to  get  out  of  their 
heads  the  idea  of  re-establishing  an  empire,  and  preferred  ruling 
unwilling  subjects  to  obtaining  willing  allies.  Tlie  Asiatic  towns 
which  had  joined  with  Athens  to  form  the  league  of  378  b.c. 
looked  on  in  disapproval  as  the  actions  of  their  great  ally  became 
more  and  more  arbitrary.  The  planting  of  a  cleruchy  at  Samos, 
a  gross  violation  of  one  of  the  fundamental  clauses  in  the  treaty 
of  confederation,  was  particularly  offensive  to  them.  But  they 
did  not  break  out  into  open  strife  with  Athens  till  357  b.c. 
when  all  the  chief  cities  of  the  league — Chios,  Byzantium,  Rhodes, 
and  Cos  among  them — simultaneously  declared  war  upon  her.  Hop- 
ing to  cow  the  confederates  by  a  vigorous  attack  on  the  strongest  of 
them,  the  Athenians  opened  the  war  by  an  attempt  to  seize  Chios. 
The  veteran  general  Chabrias,  the  victor  of  Naxos,  led  sixty  vessels 
into  the  harbor  of  that  city,  and  endeavored  to  effect  a  landing. 
But,  pushing  too  far  ahead  of  the  main  body,  he  was  slain,  and  his 
armament  retired  with  loss.  The  victorious  allies  then  laid  siege 
to  Samos,  in  order  to  expel  the  Athenian  cleruchs ;  to  relieve  the 
place,  the  old  generals  Iphicrates  and  Timotheus — the  fonner  must 
have  been  seventy  years  of  age — led  out  a  second  fleet;  but  on 
arriving  at  Samos  they  found  the  enemy  too  strong,  and  retired. 
For  this  cautious  action  they  were  impeached  by  their  colleague 
Chares,  and  tried  by  the  Ecclesia,  which,  unmindful  of  old  services, 
treated  them  both  harshly.  Iphicrates,  though  acquitted,  was  de- 
prived of  his  command,  and  Timotheus  sentenced  to  a  ruinous  fine 
of  a  hundred  talents.  Having  thus  got  rid  of  the  generals  of 
the  elder  generation,  the  Athenians  put  the  conduct  of  the  war  into 
the  hands  of  their  accuser  Chares,  an  able  but  volatile  and  untrust- 
worthy man,  whose  character  somewhat  recalled  that  of  Alcibiades. 


PHILIP'S    INVASION  455 

355-353   B.C. 

The  new  commander  made  no  progress  with  the  reduction  of  the 
allied  towns,  and,  finding  money  run  short,  sold  the  services  of  his 
army  to  Artabazus,  satrap  of  the  Hellespont,  who  had  just  revolted 
against  his  master.  King  Ochus.  By  successful  expeditions  against 
the  Persians  he  filled  his  military  chest,  but  meanwhile  the  war 
against  the  allies  stood  still. 

Presently  the  Athenians  heard  that  the  Great  King,  in  wrath  at 
the  aid  given  to  the  rebel  satrap,  was  fitting  out  three  hundred 
Phoenician  galleys  destined  to  aid  the  allies.  Struck  with  fear  at 
the  news,  they  dismissed  Chares,  asked  the  pardon  of  the  king,  and 
made  peace  with  their  enemies.  Rhodes,  Chios,  and  all  the  other 
revolted  allies  were  allowed  to  withdraw  from  the  league,  but 
Athens  retained  Samos  and  the  cities  along  the  Thracian  and  Mace- 
donian coasts,  which  were  reckoned  her  subjects  and  not  her  con- 
federates (355  B.C.).  The  newly  gained  independence  of  the  states, 
which  now  threw  off  their  connection  with  Athens,  was  not  long 
enjoyed  by  two  of  the  chief  cities;  Rhodes  and  Cos  were  conquered 
within  two  years  by  Mausolus,  prince-satrap  of  Caria,  and  thus 
passed  into  the  vassalage  of  Persia. 

While  Athens  was  engaged  in  the  Social  war,  another  set  of 
troubles  had  been  distracting  her  attention.  She  had  fallen  to 
blows  with  Philip,  King  of  Macedonia,  and  was  rapidly  losing  to 
him  her  scattered  possessions  along  the  north  coast  of  the  Aegean. 

It  is  strange  that  the  Macedonian  kingdom  had  not  commenced 
at  an  earlier  date  to  interfere  with  effect  in  the  concerns  of  the 
Greek  states,  which  lay  in  a  straggling  line  along  its  coast.  But 
though  king  after  king  had  endeavored  to  turn  the  wars  and  civil 
strifes  of  the  Hellenic  cities  to  account,  not  one  had  as  yet  made  any 
permanent  conquests.  It  was  not  from  want  of  resources  in  the 
kingdom  nor  of  ambition  in  the  kings,  but  from  the  various  evils 
which  beset  a  semi-barbarous  state  at  the  period  of  its  development 
towards  a  higher  civilization. 

The  Macedonians,  though  they  seem  to  have  been  not  very 
distant  kinsmen  of  the  Greeks,^  had  always  been  considered  for- 
eigners. Yet  they  were  not  savages  like  their  neighbors  to  east  and 
west,  the  Thracians  and  Illyrians,  but  lived  in  the  fourth  century 
much  the  same  sort  of  life  that  the  Hellenic  tribes  had  lived  in  the 
tenth.     They  formed  a  limited  monarchy  of  the  ancient  sort,  where 

2  The  few  fragments  remaining  of  the  Macedonian  dialect  show  that  it  re- 
sembled Aeolic  Greek,  but  the  race  must  have  been  very  mixed. 


456  GREECE 

399-359    B.C. 

the  king  sought  the  counsel  of  the  nobles,  and  laid  his  resolves  for 
ratification  before  the  assembly  of  the  people.  Though  some  of 
the  Macedonian  tribes  were  rough  highlanders,  yet  those  who  dwelt 
in  the  plains  of  the  Axius  and  Haliacmon  were  not  unacquainted 
with  city  life,  and  had  founded  the  considerable  towns  of  Aegae  and 
Pella.  Three  hundred  years  of  contact  with  the  Hellenic  colonies 
on  the  coast  had  profoundly  influenced  the  Macedonians,  more 
especially  their  upper  classes;  they  had  caught  from  their  neigh- 
bors some  tincture  of  Greek  manners,  and  learned  to  appreciate  the 
amenities  of  civilization.  The  majority  of  the  nobility  had  adopted 
Greek  names,  such  Archelaus,  Pausanias,  Lysimachus,  Ptolemaeus. 
They  had  begun  to  call  their  national  gods  by  Greek  titles  and  were 
usually  acquainted  with  the  Greek  language. 

The  royal  family  were  the  leaders  in  the  Hellenization  of 
Macedonia ;  they  laid  claim  to  a  remote  descent  from  the  Dorian 
princes  of  Argos.  King  Alexander,  who  served  in  the  army 
of  Xerxes,  so  far  vindicated  his  Greek  pedigree  that  he  was 
permitted  to  take  part  in  the  Olympic  games,  a  privilege  never 
granted  to  a  barbarian.  Archelaus,  the  grandson  of  Alexander, 
was  even  more  distinguished  as  a  lover  of  things  Greek;  he  enter- 
tained in  his  court  the  poets  Agathon,  Choerilus,  and  Euripides, 
employed  Zeuxis  to  cover  the  walls  of  his  palace  with  frescoes,  and 
invited — though  in  vain — the  philosopher  Socrates  to  come  to  Pella 
and  instruct  the  youth  of  Macedon.  After  the  death  of  Archelaus 
(399  B.C.),  the  kingdom  was  for  many  years  distracted  by  civil 
wars,  and  during  the  reign  of  Amyntas,  the  father  of  the  great 
Philip,  it  seemed  likely  that  the  Illyrians  from  the  inland  and  the 
Chalcidian  League  from  the  coast  would  actually  divide  Macedonia 
between  them.  Sparta  saved  the  kingdom  of  Amyntas  by  destroy- 
ing the  Chalcidian  League,  and  within  a  few  years  Macedonia  had 
so  far  recovered  her  strength  that  she  actually  made  an  attempt  to 
conquer  Northern  Thessaly,  which  was  only  repulsed  by  the  arms 
of  Pelopidas. 

The  weakness  of  Macedonia  up  to  this  time  had  been  caused 
by  the  proneness  of  her  people  to  civil  wars.  The  succession  to 
the  crown  had  been  settled  by  the  sword  quite  as  frequently  as  by 
hereditary  right ;  any  member  of  the  royal  house,  if  he  could  find 
a  powerful  body  of  followers,  might  hope  to  tear  the  scepter  from 
the  last  king's  heir.  The  numerous  and  warlike  nobility  of  the  land 
were  as  proud  and  captious  as  the  baronage  of  the  Middle  Ages, 


PHILIP'S    INVASION  457 

359   B.C. 

and  any  slight  might  cause  them  to  take  up  arms  in  the  cause  of  a 
pretender.  Hence  the  throne  of  Macedonia  was  a  thorny  seat,  and 
happy  was  that  king  who  died  in  his  bed. 

We  have  already  mentioned  that  Philip,  the  third  son  of 
Am)mtas,  was  given  as  hostage  to  Pelopidas  while  yet  a  boy,  and 
taken  to  Thebes.  He  spent  several  years  there  in  honorable  cap- 
tivity, allowed  to  turn  the  time  to  account  as  he  might  choose,  but 
debarred  from  returning  home.  Philip  was  a  lad  of  extraordinary 
parts;  not  only  did  he  become  versed  in  Greek  literature  and  phi- 
losophy, and  master  the  Greek  tongue  so  thoroughly  as  to  be 
reckoned  one  of  the  first  orators  of  his  age,  but  he  gained  an  insight 
into  Greek  statecraft  and  a  knowledge  of  the  art  of  war  such  as 
none  of  his  contemporaries  attained.  Thebes  was  in  these  years 
the  center  of  Hellenic  politics,  and  Epaminondas  the  first  general  of 
the  age,  but  it  was  not  every  lad  of  sixteen  who  could  have  turned 
his  opportunities  of  observation  to  such  use  as  did  the  young  Mace- 
donian exile. 

After  spending  some  three  or  four  years  in  Thebes,  Philip  was 
called  back  to  Macedon  by  the  misfortunes  of  his  house.  His 
eldest  brother,  King  Alexander  H.,  had  been  murdered,  and  Alex- 
ander's successor,  his  second  brother  Perdiccas,  was,  after  a  short 
reign,  slain  in  battle  with  the  Illyrians.  Perdiccas  left  a  son,  but 
the  boy  was  very  young,  and  Philip  was  appointed  his  guardian  and 
regent  of  the  kingdom  (359  B.C.). 

It  was  no  easy  task  which  Philip  had  to  take  up,  at  the  early 
age  of  twenty-three.  Two  pretenders  of  the  royal  blood  disputed 
his  nephew's  crown,  while  the  Illyrians,  who  had  just  slain  his 
brother  Perdiccas,  were  breaking  in  on  the  northwest  frontier  of 
the  kingdom.  But  the  young  regent  was  quite  able  to  cope  with 
the  difiiculties  which  beset  him.  Nature  had  endowed  him  with 
every  quality  which  a  ruler  of  Macedon  needed.  The  rudest  of 
his  subjects  could  not  but  admire  the  prince  who  always  led  his 
army  in  person,  and  was  the  best  horseman,  the  boldest  swimmer, 
the  keenest  hunter,  in  the  land;  nor  was  he  liked  any  the  worse 
for  loving  the  wine-cup  over  well — a  national  foible.  But  Philip 
was  not  a  mere  soldier;  from  his  youth  up  he  preferred  dissimula- 
tion to  force.  He  had  studied  the  subtleties  of  Greek  statecraft 
and  took  a  keen  intellectual  pleasure  in  outwitting  an  adversary, 
especially  when  that  adversary  was  a  Greek  politician.  All  methods 
of  arriving  at  an  end  were  equally  good  to  him;  he  disowned  a 


458  GREECE 

359-358   B.C. 

treaty  or  broke  an  oath  with  a  frank  levity  which  astonished  even 
the  most  cahous  of  the  statesmen  of  Greece,  Corruption  was  his 
favorite  weapon ;  he  had  fathomed  the  depths  of  Greek  venahty, 
and  ahvays  commenced  a  war  by  hiring  some  faction-leader  among 
his  enemies  to  lend  him  aid.  "  No  town  is  impregnable,"  he  said, 
"  if  once  I  can  get  a  mule-load  of  silver  passed  within  its  gate." 
Philip's  deep  cunning  was  long  unsuspected  by  his  contemporaries, 
on  account  of  the  free,  courteous,  and  open  deportment  which  he 
displayed ;  it  was  hard  to  believe  that  a  man  could  look  so  honest 
and  mean  so  ill.  Nor  were  his  good  qualities  all  assumed.  He  was 
never  cruel  for  cruelty's  sake ;  he  was  a  firm  friend  and  a  liberal 
master;  his  courtesy  and  good-nature  were  genuine  and  not  as- 
sumed; and  if  he  despised  Greek  factiousness  and  venality,  he  had 
a  real  admiration  for  Greek  culture  and  civilization. 

Within  two  years  after  Philip  had  assumed  the  regency  of 
Macedonia  he  had  cleared  away  both  the  pretenders  who  claimed 
the  crown  and  inflicted  a  crushing  defeat  on  the  Illyrians.  Having 
thus  won  unbounded  popularity,  he  quietly  deposed  his  nephew 
and  had  himself  proclaimed  king  (358  B.C.).  His  next  step  was 
to  reorganize  the  national  army,  which  had  hitherto  been  a  mere 
tumultuous  tribal  gathering.  The  numerous  and  fiery  nobles  were 
encouraged  to  join  the  king's  horse-guard,  and  honored  with  the  title 
of  his  "companions"  (eratpoi),  while  the  picked  men  of  the  tribal 
levies  were  enregimented  into  light  and  heavy  corps  of  infantry. 
Taking  to  heart  the  system  of  Epaminondas,  the  king  formed  the 
core  of  his  army  out  of  regiments  trained  to  fight  in  deep  columns, 
and  armed  with  a  ponderous  pike  treble  the  length  of  the  Greek 
lance — so  long,  in  fact,  that  the  spear-heads  of  the  third  and  fourth 
rank  projected  in  front  of  the  charging  column  as  well  as  those  of 
the  first.  This  heavy  phalanx  never  failed  to  bear  down  the  or- 
dinary Greek  line  of  hoplites  by  sheer  weight  of  impact. 

Philip's  ambition,  when  he  had  firmly  seated  himself  on  the 
throne,  was  first  directed  towards  securing  for  Macedonia  a  harbor, 
the  aim  which  so  many  of  his  predecessors  had  vainly  sought  to 
attain.  He  determined  not  to  molest  at  first  the  Chalcidian  cities, 
which  lay  in  a  compact  body  in  the  center,  but  to  make  an  attempt 
either  on  one  of  the  scattered  Athenian  possessions  or  at  some 
isolated  autonomous  town.  Chance  enabled  him  to  do  both ;  he 
found  the  Athenians  plotting  an  expedition  against  the  city  of 
Amphipolis,  on  which  they  had  never  ceased  to  nourish  designs 


PHILIP'S    INVASION  459 

358    B.C. 

since  it  revolted  to  Brasidas  sixty-five  years  ago.  Philip  at  once 
opened  negotiations  with  them,  and  offered  to  put  Amphipolis  into 
their  hands,  if  they  would  give  him  in  exchange  their  port  of 
Pydna  on  the  Thermaic  Gulf.  The  Athenians  agreed,  for  the 
exchange  was  manifestly  in  their  favor,  and  looked  on  while  Philip 
laid  siege  to  Amphipolis,  which  fell  into  his  hands  in  a  few  weeks. 
He  then  presented  himself  before  the  gates  of  Pydna,  which  was 
surrendered  to  him ;  when  this  was  done  he  promptly  disavowed  his 
agreement,  and  kept  both  places  in  his  own  hands.  Knowing  that 
this  meant  instant  war  with  Athens,  he  fell  on  Potidaea,  the  most 
important  Athenian  possession  in  those  parts,  and  seized  it  before 
any  succor  could  arrive.  Instead,  however,  of  keeping  it  himself, 
he  handed  Potidaea  over  to  the  Olynthians,  the  leading  Chalcidian 
state,  and  thus  embroiled  them  with  Athens. 

Just  at  this  moment  the  Social  war  broke  out,  and  while  the 
Athenians  were  engaged  in  it  they  had  no  leisure  to  punish  Philip 
or  his  accomplices  of  Olynthus.  Thus  the  Macedonian  king  was 
able  for  three  years  to  prosecute  his  designs  without  molestation : 
he  soon  showed  that  they  were  likely  to  lead  him  far  afield.  Now 
that  he  possessed  Amphipolis  and  its  all-important  bridge  over  the 
Strymon,  the  road  to  Thrace  was  in  his  hands.  Crossing  the  river, 
he  plunged  into  the  hills,  and  conquered  one  by  one  the  Thracian 
tribes  as  far  east  as  the  Nestus.  The  main  purpose  of  this  expedi- 
tion was  to  regain  possession  of  the  mines  of  Mount  Pangaeus,  the 
richest  gold-producing  region  known  to  the  ancient  w^orld.  When 
the  district  was  subdued,  the  king  built  in  its  midst  a  new  town, 
named  after  himself,  Philippi,  which  served  at  once  as  a  center  for 
the  mining,  and  as  a  fortress  to  keep  down  the  Thracians.  Within 
a  few  years  the  gold  was  coming  forth  so  rapidly  that  the  king 
derived  from  the  mines  no  less  than  a  thousand  talents  per  annum 
($1,220,000).  Hence  came  the  abundant  coinage  of  staters,  which 
first  accustomed  the  Greeks  to  a  national  gold  currency,  and  un- 
locked for  Philip  the  gates  of  so  many  hostile  towns. 

While  Philip  was  conquering  the  Thracians,  and  Athens  was 
contending  with  her  recalcitrant  allies,  Thebes,  the  power  which 
had  lately  been  predominant  in  Greece,  was  involving  herself  in  a 
maze  of  troubles  from  which  she  had  now  no  Epaminondas  to 
deliver  her.  Thebes  and  Phocis  had  been  bitter  enemies  of  old, 
and  though  the  Phocians  joined  the  Theban  alliance  after  Leuctra, 
they  did  so  from  necessity  and  not  from  choice.     In  362  B.C.  they 


460  GREECE 

356    B.C. 

had  so  far  let  their  real  feelings  appear  that  they  had  neglected  to 
send  a  contingent  to  the  allied  army  which  fought  at  Mantinea. 
The  Thebans  bore  them  a  grudge  for  this,  and  waited  for  an  oppor- 
tunity of  repaying  it.  The  chance  came  in  a  few  years;  the  Del- 
phians  accused  certain  Phocian  landholders  of  having  trespassed 
upon  and  tilled  waste  ground  dedicated  to  Apollo,  and  brought  the 
case  before  that  venerable  but  effete  body  the  Amphictyonic  As- 
sembly, which  still  sat  from  year  to  year,  and  sometimes  interfered 
in  politics.  The  Amphictyons,  being  wholly  under  the  control  of 
Thebes  and  Thessaly,  voted  that  a  heinous  sacrilege  had  been  com- 
mitted, and  inflicted  a  heavy  fine  on  the  Phocians.  The  fine  was 
left  unpaid;  whereupon  it  was  doubled,  and  the  Amphictyons 
threatened  the  recalcitrant  state  that  unless  instant  satisfaction  was 
made,  its  lands  should  be  declared  escheated  to  the  god  and  become 
the  property  of  the  temple. 

This  brought  matters  to  a  crisis ;  the  Phocians  were  a  vigorous' 
and  high-spirited  people,  who  would  not  endure  to  be  bullied  by 
their  enemies  under  this  hypocritical  pretext  of  religion.  Led  by 
two  ambitious  chiefs  named  Philomelus  and  Onomarchus,  they 
quietly  armed,  and  when  all  was  ready  for  war,  seized  Delphi  and 
its  temple  by  a  night  surprise.  Philomelus  sought  out  and  slew  the 
Delphians  who  had  been  the  accusers  of  Phocis,  and  then  compelled 
the  priests  to  set  the  oracle  working  at  his  dictation,  so  that  Apollo 
pronounced  a  blessing  on  the  captors  of  his  sanctuary.  It  seemed 
efficacious,  for  when  the  Locrians  of  Amphissa,  the  next  neighbors 
of  Delphi,  came  to  drive  out  Philomelus,  they  suffered  a  bloody 
defeat. 

The  Phocian  leaders  were  quite  aware  that  their  action  in- 
volved a  war  with  Thebes  and  Thessaly,  and  knew  that  their  own 
levies  were  quite  insufficient  to  cope  with  those  formidable  powers. 
But  the  seizure  of  Delphi  put  the  enormous  temple-treasures  in  their 
hands,  and  the  men  who  had  $12,500,000^  in  hard  bullion  at  their 
disposal  were  not  likely  to  want  mercenaries.  Accordingly  when 
the  Amphictyons  met,  and  put  Phocis  under  the  ban  for  sacrilege, 
Philomelus  retorted  by  a  manifesto  in  which  he  justified  his  action, 
and  promised  high  pay  to  every  hoplite  in  Greece  who  would  join 
the  Phocian  ranks.  Then  began  the  "  Sacred  war,"  which,  in 
spite  of  its  name,  was  not  a  crusade  of  all  Greece  against  Phocis,  but 

3  It  is  extraordinary   that,  out  of   the   enormou.-,  coinage   struck  from   the 
temple-money,  only  a  few  triobols  and  copper  pieces  survive. 


PHILIP'S    INVASION  461 

354   B.C. 

merely  an  attempt  of  the  Thebans,  Thessalians,  and  Locrians  to 
crush  their  neighbor  state.  The  Phocians,  indeed,  got  quite  as 
much  sympathy  from  the  outside  world  as  their  enemies.  Sparta 
would  have  helped  them  had  she  been  able ;  and  Athens,  when  free 
from  troubles  of  her  own,  was  not  indisposed  to  co-operate. 

When  actual  hostilities  commenced  the  Phocians  proved  quite 
able  to  Ijold  their  own.  Philomelus,  indeed,  fell  in  battle  in  the 
first  year  of  the  war,  but  his  successor,  Onomarchus,  kept  the  field 
with  ten  thousand  mercenaries  at  his  back,  and  not  only  protected 
Phocis,  but  carried  the  war  far  into  the  enemy's  country.  In 
Thessaly  he  bribed  the  tyrants  of  Pherae,  the  successors  of  Alex- 
ander, to  desert  their  national  league,  and  take  his  part;  aided  by 
liberal  supplies  of  Delphic  temple-treasure,  they  proved  strong 
enough  to  hold  the  Thessalians  in  check.  Meanwhile  Onomarchus 
fell  on  Boeotia,  and — to  the  great  surprise  of  those  who  remem- 
bered the  days  of  Epaminondas — beat  the  Thebans  in  the  open 
field.  Then,  turning  on  the  smaller  members  of  the  Thessalo- 
Theban  confederacy,  he  harried  the  lands  of  the  Locrians,  Dorians, 
and  Oetaeans,  till  not  a  farmstead  was  left  unburned  in  all  their 
valleys. 

Thus  utterly  discomfited,  the  enemies  of  Phocis  took  a  fatal 
step :  they  asked  the  assistance  of  Philip  of  Macedon.  It  was 
Thessalians,  the  nobility  of  Larissa,  who  actually  invited  him  to 
cross  Mount  Olympus  and  trespass  on  the  soil  of  Hellas;  but  the 
Thebans,  who  did  not  disown  the  invitation,  must  take  their  share 
of  the  blame. 

Of  late  Philip  had  been  flourishing  exceedingly.  Athens  had 
been  brought  so  low  by  her  defeat  in  the  Social  war  that  she  was 
unable  to  protect  her  outlying  possessions,  and  saw  Methone — her 
last  port  in  Macedonia — taken  in  354  b.c.^  after  a  long  siege,  in 
which  the  king  lost  one  of  his  eyes  by  an  arrow.  Philip's  plans 
enlarged  as  his  power  grew  greater;  he  increased  his  army,  com- 
menced to  build  a  fleet,  and  strengthened  his  frontier  against  the 
barbarian  tribes  of  the  inland;  not  least  among  his  successes  he 
counted  the  fact  that  his  chariot  had  been  victorious  at  the  Olympic 
games.  Now  he  was  ready  to  take  any  chance  that  came  up  for 
obtaining  a  foothold  in  Greece. 

When  Philip  advanced  against  Pherae,  he  found  himself  op- 
posed by  Phayllus,  the  brother  of  Onomarchus,  who  had  marched 
north  in,  order  to  join  the  Pheraeans.     This  general  Philip  drove 


462  GREECE 

352  B.C. 

back,  but  presently  Onomarchus  himself  came  on  the  scene,  with 
the  main  army  of  the  Phocians.  He  met  the  Macedonians,  routed 
them  in  two  engagements,  and  drove  Philip  home  across  the  moun- 
tains. Then,  turning  back  to  Boeotia,  he  stormed  Coroneia,  and 
induced  Orchomenus  to  desert  the  Thebans  and  declare  itself  in- 
dependent. This  was  the  high-water  mark  of  Phocian  success 
during  the  ten  years  of  the  Sacred  war. 

Within  a  few  months  of  his  first  check  Philip  again  appeared 
in  Thessaly  with  a  new  army  of  twenty  thousand  men.  Ono- 
marchus marched  against  him,  and  met  him  hard  by  the  port  of 
Pagasae.  The  fortune  of  war  had  changed;  the  Macedonian 
phalanx  broke  through  the  Phocian  mercenaries ;  Onomarchus  him- 
self fell  with  six  thousand  of  his  men,  and  Philip  then  expelled  the 
tyrants  of  Pherae,  and  declared  their  city  free  and  autonomous 
but,  under  the  pretense  of  military  necessity,  he  occupied  with 
Macedonian  garrisons  the  city  of  Pagasae  and  several  places  more 
on  the  Magnesian  Peninsula,  thus  making  himself  master  of  the 
keys  of  Thessaly. 

Meanwhile  Philip's  success  had  frightened  all  those  states  in 
Greece  who  were  not  committed  to  the  Theban  alliance.  That 
a  barbarian  king  should  march  far  into  Hellenic  soil  and  plant 
his  garrisons  almost  on  the  Euboean  Strait  appeared  intolerable 
to  all  who  were  not  blinded  by  hatred  of  the  Phocians.  Accord- 
ingly, when  Philip  moved  southward  to  complete  his  victory  by 
occupying  Phocis,  he  found  Thermopylae  held  by  an  Athenian  army 
and  fleet,  while  troops  from  Achaia  and  Sparta  joined  the  wrecks 
of  the  Phocian  army,  which  had  rallied  round  Phayllus,  who  had 
been  appointed  general  of  the  Phocian  League  in  place  of  his 
deceased  brother.  There  were  still  plenty  of  cups  and  tripods 
unmelted  in  the  temple-store  at  Delphi,  so  Phayllus  could  ere  long 
hire  and  send  into  the  field  as  large  a  mercenary  host  as  that  which 
had  perished  with  Onomarchus  at  Pagasae. 

Finding  Thermopylae  impregnable,  Philip  turned  back,  foiled 
for  the  first  and  almost  the  last  occasion  in  his  life  by  an  Athe- 
nian armament.  Seeing  that  the  times  were  not  yet  ripe  in  Central 
Greece,  he  let  the  Sacred  war  shift  for  itself,  and  went  off  on  quite 
another  quest.  His  campaign  had  brought  him  the  possession  of 
the  Thessalian  fortresses,  and  with  that  result  he  was,  for  the 
present,  satisfied.  Meanwhile  there  was  work  for  him  to  do 
further  north. 


Chapter    XLII 

PHILIP  AND  DEMOSTHENES,  352-344  B.C. 

FOR  five  years  after  his  check  at  Thermopylae,  King  PhiHp 
refrained  from  carrying  his  arms  into  Greece,  and  allowed 
the  Sacred  war  to  drag  out  its  weary  length  without  his 
interference.  Although  the  Phocians  had  lost  their  foothold  in 
Thessaly,  yet  in  the  south  their  strength  was  little  diminished; 
Phayllus,  and  after  his  death  his  nephew  Phalaecus,  the  son  of 
Onomarchus,  still  contrived  to  hold  Thebes  in  check,  and  even  to 
maintain  a  hold  on  the  captured  Boeotian  towns  of  Coroneia  and 
Orchomenus.  As  long  as  the  temple-treasure  lasted,  it  seemed  that 
the  Phocian  leaders  and  their  mercenaries  were  likely  to  hold  their 
own;  but  after  five  or  six  years  of  war  the  great  hoard  was  ap- 
preciably diminished,  and  men  began  to  reflect  that  some  day  it 
would  run  dry.  This  reflection  encouraged  the  Thebans  to  persist, 
although  meanwhile  they  were  bearing  all  the  brunt  of  the  war, 
while  the  Thessalians  and  King  Philip  had  slackened  in  their  first 
zeal  when  their  own  immediate  objects  were  attained. 

The  Macedonian  monarch  had  turned  his  restless  mind  once 
more  to  schemes  of  Thracian  conquest.  Ere  the  year  which  saw 
his  Thessalian  campaign  had  reached  its  end,  we  find  him  pushing 
his  border  eastward  along  the  north  coast  of  the  Aegean,  and 
seizing  now  the  territories  of  some  native  kinglet,  now  those  of  an 
isolated  Greek  city,  now  an  outlying  Athenian  fortress.  His 
furthest  raid  took  him  as  far  as  the  shore  of  the  Euxine,  but  his 
power  was  not  actually  established  beyond  the  neighborhood  of  the 
city  of  Aenus.  The  Athenian  possessions  in  the  Thracian  Chersonese 
and  the  independent  cities  on  the  Propontis  were  still  untouched. 
In  the  following  years  Philip  pushed  far  westward;  he  beat  the 
Illyrians  in  battle,  built  forts  among  them,  compelled  many  of  their 
tribes  to  do  him  homage,  and  then  forced  the  princes  of  Epirus  to 
acknowledge  his  supremacy. 

This  rapid  development  of  Philip's  power  to  east  and  west  left 
the  Greek  cities  of  Chalcidice- — Olynthus  and  her  sister  towns — in 

463 


464  GREECE 

352-350  B.C. 

a  perfectly  isolated  condition,  occupying  a  precarious  position  of 
independence  in  a  slip  of  territory  enclosed  between  the  sea  and  the 
Macedonian  border.  Philip  had  treated  them  with  scrupulous 
politeness  ever  since  Olynthus  had  joined  him  against  Athens,  and 
committed  herself  to  his  side  by  accepting  the  gift  of  the  Athenian 
town  of  Potidaea.  But  as  the  king  became  more  and  more  power- 
ful, the  Chalcidians  began  to  grow  uneasy ;  they  saw  him  annex  city 
after  city  of  their  Hellenic  neighbors,  and  began  to  suspect  that 
all  they  had  gained  by  allying  themselves  to  Philip  was  the  privilege 
of  being  devoured  a  little  later  than  the  rest.  It  was  not  likely 
that  the  sovereign  who  had  so  readily  laid  hands  on  Amphipolis 
and  Pydna,  Maronea  and  Pagasae  would  refrain  forever  from 
designs  on  Olynthus.  Accordingly  the  Chalcidians  began  to  retire 
from  their  friendship  with  Philip ;  they  concluded  a  peace  with 
Athens  in  352  b.c.^  and  a  little  later  gave  harborage  to  a  rebel 
Macedonian  prince — the  king's  step-brother — who  fled  to  them  for 
refuge.  These  steps  showed  Philip  that  he  could  no  longer  rely 
on  the  friendship  or  neutrality  of  Olynthus  and  her  confederates 
when  he  made  his  next  attack  on  Greece.  While  his  Thracian  and 
Illyrian  campaigns  were  in  progress  he  left  them  alone,  but  after 
all  had  been  made  secure  to  east  and  west,  his  armies  began  to 
gather  in  a  menacing  fashion  on  the  borders  of  Chalcidice. 

Seeing  the  end  at  hand,  the  Olynthians  sent  an  embassy  to 
Athens,  to  beg  their  former  enemy  to  lend  them  instant  assistance. 
The  Athenians  had  of  late  been  conducting  the  war  against  Philip 
in  the  most  careless  and  half-hearted  way;  they  sent  a  small  force 
of  mercenaries  now  and  again  to  harass  his  army  in  Thrace,  but 
seemed  to  care  little  what  successes  he  gained  so  long  as  the  war 
lay  far  from  the  gates  of  Athens.  While  he  was  seizing  their 
northern  possessions  they  had  given  their  whole  attention  to  an 
unnecessary  and  futile  expedition  to  Euboea,  destined  to  drive  out 
the  tyrants  who  occupied  Chalcis  and  Oreus.  Although  their 
general  Phocion  won  a  brilliant  victory  at  Tamynae  over  the  con- 
federate Euboeans,  the  general  result  of  the  campaign  was  utter 
failure  and  useless  expense  (350  B.C.). 

When  the  Olynthian  envoys  reached  Athens  the  question  came 
before  the  Ecclesia  whether  things  should  be  allowed  to  drift  on, 
as  they  had  done  for  the  last  ten  years,  or  whether  a  vigorous 
offensive  war  should  be  begun  against  Philip.  In  favor  of  the  latter 
alternative  were  made  the  three  great  orations  of  Demosthenes, 


^H^^P^I 

r^Mi 

DEMOSTHENES 

(Porn   circa     385    B.  c.     Died    322    b.  c.) 

Bust  in   the   Vatican.   Rome 


PHILIP    AND    DEMOSTHENES  465 

354-351    B.C. 

whose  name  begins  from  this  moment  to  be  more  and  more  closely 
identified  with  all  the  phases  of  Athenian  politics. 

Demosthenes  was  a  member  of  the  wealthy  middle  class;  his 
father,  who  had  been  the  owner  of  a  shield  factory,  died  leaving 
him  in  the  hands  of  guardians  who  mismanaged  and  dissipated  his 
inheritance.  When  he  came  to  years  of  discretion,  Demosthenes 
plunged  into  a  series  of  lawsuits  with  the  fraudulent  trustees,  and 
acquired,  while  urging  his  private  wrongs,  the  taste  for  public 
speaking  which  was  to  make  him  the  greatest  political  orator  of 
the  age.  But  at  first  his  success  was  not  equal  to  his  energy;  his 
awkward  bearing,  over-rapid  delivery,  and  imperfect  articulation 
spoiled  the  effect  of  excellent  discourses,  and  he  came  down  from 
the  Bema  lamenting  that  "  while  any  drunken  sea-captain  could  get 
a  hearing,  he,  who  had  really  something  to  tell  the  Athenians,  was 
hooted  down  in  a  moment."  His  friends  encouraged  him  to  per- 
sist, assuring  him  that  however  bad  his  manner  might  be,  yet  the 
matter  of  his  speeches  was  worthy  of  Pericles.  Accordingly 
Demosthenes  set  himself  to  acquire  the  arts  of  the  public  speaker; 
he  did  not  disdain  hints  on  elocution  from  his  friend  the  actor 
Satyrus,  and  practiced  declamation  under  the  most  unfavorable 
circumstances.  A  tradition  says  that  he  would  go  down  to  the  sea- 
shore during  storms,  and  strive  to  make  his  voice  heard  above  the 
roar  of  wind  and  waves,  in  order  to  learn  the  pitch  necessary  for 
addressing  the  boisterous  assembly  of  his  fellow-citizens.  When 
he  was  able  to  set  forth  his  views  with  a  suitable  delivery,  the 
intrinsic  merit  of  his  speeches  made  itself  felt  at  once,  and  he  soon 
became  the  leading  orator  of  the  war-party  at  Athens. 

Demosthenes  had  fed  his  imagination  on  the  great  deeds  of 
Athens  in  the  previous  generation ;  his  favorite  reading  was  the 
history  of  Thucydides,  and  the  aim  which  underlay  all  his  political 
action  was  the  restoration  of  his  native  city  to  the  leading  place 
among  Hellenic  states.  His  first  important  political  harangues 
were  devoted  to  advocating  the  reorganization  of  the  fleet,  which 
had  fallen  into  a  deplorable  condition  of  inefficiency  in  the  Social 
war  (354  B.C.).  A  little  later  he  is  found  encouraging  the  Athe- 
nians to  send  help  first  to  Megalopolis  (352  B.C.),  and  then  to 
Rhodes  (351  B.C.),  in  order  to  vindicate  the  old  claim  of  Athens  to 
be  the  friend  and  helper  of  all  oppressed  cities.  Indeed,  the  chief 
fault  of  his  policy  was  that  he  often  strove  to  induce  the  impover- 
ished and  languid  city  of  his  own  day  to  carry  out  the  schemes  that 


466  GREECE 

347  B.C. 

would  have  suited  the  Athens  of  420  b.c.  Not  being,  as  the  states- 
men of  the  elder  generation  had  been,  a  soldier  as  well  as  a  poli- 
tician, he  was  prone  to  lose  sight  of  military  necessities  in  his  zeal 
for  attaining  some  cherished  political  end. 

As  the  character  and  designs  of  King  Philip  gradually  grew 
plainer,  the  policy  of  Demosthenes  tended  more  and  more  to  resolve 
itself  into  an  anti-Macedonian  crusade.  His  oration  on  the  state 
navy  has  received  the  name  of  the  "  First  Philippic,"  because  of  the 
drift  of  its  contents;  and  in  his  later  speeches  the  name  of  Philip 
is  mentioned  with  ever-increasing  frequency,  till  his  misdoings 
became  the  sole  burden  of  the  orator's  discourse. 

When  the  Olynthian  ambassadors  begged  for  the  assistance  of 
Athens,  Demosthenes  urged  not  only  that  previous  grudges  should 
be  forgiven,  and  an  alliance  concluded  with  them,  but  that  a  large 
Athenian  army,  not  mere  mercenaries,  but  citizen  hoplites,  should 
be  sent  to  attack  Macedonia.  He  succeeded  in  only  half  his  pro- 
ject; the  alliance  was  made,  but  the  succor  sent  was  hopelessly  in- 
adequate— first  a  small  fleet  of  thirty-eight  ships  under  the  erratic 
Chares,  then  four  thousand  mercenary  peltasts  headed  by  Chari- 
demus,  a  Euboean  general  taken  into  Attic  pay,  who  was  more  than 
once  suspected  of  playing  his  employers  false.  Thus  insufficiently 
aided,  the  Chalcidian  towns  fell  one  by  one  into  the  hands  of  Philip, 
The  Olynthians  alone  dared  to  face  the  king's  army  in  the  open 
field,  but  they  were  twice  routed,  and  after  the  second  battle  two 
traitors,  bought  with  Macedonian  gold,  opened  the  gates  to  the 
victor.  Philip  burned  Olynthus,  and  sold  many  of  its  citizens  into 
slavery,  in  return  for  the  ingratitude  which  he  alleged  that  the 
state  had  shown  him.  Some  of  the  smaller  Chalcidian  towns 
shared   its   fate. 

The  Atli^nians  seem  to  have  been  more  surprised  than  vexed 
at  the  fall  of  Olynthus;  in  spite  of  the  harangues  of  Demosthenes 
it  was  hard  to  interest  them  in  a  war  so  far  from  home.  A  large 
party  in  the  state  only  thought  of  the  material  interests  of  Athens, 
and  were  ready  to  sacrifice  everything  else  if  only  her  trade  and 
commerce  were  left  untouched,  and  these  could  best  be  secured  by 
making  peace  with  Philip  on  such  terms  as  he  chose  to  give.  An- 
other section,  though  not  influenced  by  such  sordid  motives  as 
the  first,  thought  that  Athens  was  too  weak  and  exhausted  to  go 
crusading  against  Philip  for  the  public  good  of  Greece,  and  dis- 
couraged all  vigorous  action  as  profitless  and  doomed  to  failure. 


PHILIP    AND    DEMOSTHENES  467 

346    B.C. 

This  party  was  headed  by  Phocion,  the  last  Athenian  who  com- 
bined successfully  the  functions  of  orator  and  general.  Though 
brave  and  honest,  he  was  a  hopeless  pessimist;  he  was  too  much 
of  a  philosopher  to  be  in  harmony  with  the  multitude,  and  more- 
over held  democracy  in  such  contempt  that  he  believed  that  no 
good  thing  could  ever  come  from  the  Athenian  Ecclesia.  He  par- 
ticularly detested  the  fiery  and  emotional  harangues  of  Demosthenes, 
and  opposed  him  so  bluntly,  yet  so  efficiently,  that  the  orator  was 
wont  to  say,  whenever  his  adversary  mounted  the  Bema,  "  Here 
comes  the  cleaver  that  will  hack  my  periods  to  pieces." 

The  Athenians  had  expected,  when  Olynthus  fell,  that  Philip 
would  turn  his  arms  against  the  Thracian  Chersonese,  the  last  of 
their  northern  possessions.  They  were  afraid,  too,  that,  now  that 
so  many  seaports  were  in  his  hands,  the  king  would  endeavor  to 
send  out  ships  to  molest  their  commerce :  on  one  occasion,  indeed, 
some  Macedonian  privateers  had  actually  made  a  descent  on  Attica, 
and  carried  away  the  Paralus,  one  of  the  two  state-galleys,  as  it 
lay  anchored  off  Marathon,  But  they  were  agreeably  surprised 
when  Philip,  instead  of  urging  on  the  war,  showed  an  unmistakable 
inclination  to  make  peace.  Though  unable  to  discover  the  king's 
motive,  the  majority  of  the  Athenians  were  eager  to  humor  his 
bent,  and,  on  the  motion  of  a  speaker  named  Philocrates,  an  em- 
bassy of  ten  members  was  sent  to  Pella,  to  learn  the  terms  on  which 
he  wished  to  treat.  Among  the  envoys  were  Philocrates,  the  mover 
of  the  motion,  Demosthenes,  and  his  rival,  the  orator  Aeschines. 
Philip  received  them  with  great  courtesy,  dazzled  them  with  the 
splendor  of  his  court  and  the  strength  of  his  resources,  and  seems 
to  have  secured  the  enthusiastic  admiration  of  several  of  their  num- 
ber by  the  simple  expedient  of  bribing  them  heavily.  The  embassy 
returned  to  Athens  full  of  the  king's  praises,  but  unable  to  report 
that  they  had  agreed  on  terms  of  peace.  Before  coming  to  an 
agreement,  Philip  had  determined  to  extract  all  the  benefit  he  could 
from  the  war;  knowing  that  Athens  would  no  longer  molest  him 
on  the  eve  of  peace,  he  rushed  off  to  Thrace,  and  in  a  hurried  cam- 
paign completed  the  subjection  of  the  princes  of  that  country. 
Meanwhile  he  had  sent  ambassadors  to  Athens,  who  kept  his 
enemies  amused  by  protracted  haggling  over  the  terms  of  pacifica- 
tion. When  Thrace  was  conquered  his  conditions  were  at  last 
formulated ;  they  amounted  to  a  recognition  of  the  status  quo.  He 
was  to  retain  all  his  conquests,  new  and  old,  Athens  was  to  give 


468  GREECE 

346  B.C 

up  all  claim  to  her  lost  possessions,  and  keep  only  what  was  still 
in  her  hands.  Moreover,  the  pacification,  though  it  was  to  extend 
to  all  other  allies  of  Athens,  was  not  to  include  the  Phocians.  The 
Athenians  only  assented  to  this  last  clause  because  Philocrates  and 
Aeschines,  who  had  fingered  Philip's  money,  solemnly  assured  them 
that  the  stipulation  w^as  merely  formal,  the  king  having  no  intention 
of  injuring  Phocis,  but  being  much  more  likely  to  turn  his  arms 
against  Thebes.  Under  this  impression  the  Ecclesia  ratified  the 
terms  of  peace,  and  sent  off  the  ten  envoys  to  Pella  for  the  second 
time,  to  administer  the  corresponding  oath  of  alliance  to  Philip. 
The  majority  of  the  ambassadors,  in  spite  of  the  remonstrances  of 
Demosthenes,  lingered  so  long  on  their  voyage  that  they  took  three 
weeks  in  reaching  the  Macedonian  capital ;  there  they  waited  a 
month  more,  because  Philip  was  still  absent  in  Thrace.  Finally 
when  he  appeared  they  did  not  insist  on  his  ratifying  the  treaty  at 
once,  as  Demosthenes  urged  them  to  do,  but  accompanied  him  into 
Thessaly,  and  only  administered  the  oath  to  him  at  Pherae.  For 
this  dilatory  action  the  ambassadors  had  the  best  of  reasons ;  they 
were  carrying  out  their  corrupt  agreement  with  Philip,  who  had 
paid  them  to  keep  his  intentions  hidden  from  the  Athenian  people 
till  it  was  too  late  to  oppose  him. 

The  object  of  the  king's  advance  to  Pherae  was  demonstrated 
the  moment  that  the  peace  had  been  signed.  Within  a  few  days 
he  was  at  Thermopylae,  and  had  seized  the  pass,  w^hich  the  Phocians 
were  unable  to  defend  now^  that  no  Athenian  force  came  to  their 
aid.  The  mountain-barrier  once  pierced,  the  resistance  of  Phocis 
suddenly  collapsed.  Phalaecus,  finding  himself  at  close  quarters 
v/ith  the  Mecedonians,  determined  to  surrender  without  a  blow. 
He  obtained  permission  to  depart  w'ith  his  eight  thousand  merce- 
naries, and  such  of  the  Phocians  as  thought  it  wise  to  follow  him. 
Taking  ship  he  passed  away,  first  to  Peloponnesus,  then  to  Crete, 
where  he  fell  at  the  siege  of  Cydonia. 

The  Phocians,  thus  basely  deserted  by  their  leader,  threw  them- 
selves on  the  mercy  of  Philip;  twenty-two  cities  one  after  another 
opened  their  gates  to  him  when  he  presented  himself  before  their 
walls.  Remembering  the  fate  of  Olynthus,  they  awaited  with  no 
small  apprehension  the  doom  that  might  be  meted  out  to  them  as 
the  plunderers  of  Delphi. 

The  king's  intentions  proved  to  be  less  harsh  than  might  have 
been  expected;  it  was  not  his  detestation  of  Phocian  impiety,  but 


PHILIP    AND    DEMOSTHENES  469 

345    B.C. 

his  desire  to  hold  the  gates  of  Greece,  that  had  brought  him  to 
Thermopylae.  Advancing  to  Delphi,  he  summoned  the  Amphic- 
tyonic  assembly  to  meet  in  its  old  seat,  which  it  had  not  seen  for 
ten  years.  The  delegates  came,  burning  to  avenge  themselves  on 
the  Phocians,  and  proposed  the  most  savage  measures  against  their 
conquered  foes;  the  Oetaean  delegates,  for  example,  wished  to  cast 
all  Phocian  males  of  military  age  over  the  precipices  of  Parnassus. 
But  Philip  restrained  their  fury,  and  toned  down  the  sentence  to 
a  comparative  mild  shape.  The  towns  of  Phocis,  except  Abae, 
were  to  be  dismantled,  and  their  inhabitants  forced  to  dwell  apart 
in  villages  of  not  more  than  fifty  hearths.  The  whole  race  was 
disarmed,  a  strip  of  their  frontier-land  was  made  over  to  the 
Boeotians,  and  they  were  commanded  to  pay  fifty  talents  a  year 
to  Apollo,  till  they  should  have  restored  the  entire  sum  which  they 
had  taken  from  the  Delphian  treasure — a  consummation  which 
would  arrive  in  about  two  hundred  years. 

The  other  resolves  of  the  Amphictyons  were  far  more  im- 
portant than  their  decrees  against  the  conquered  enemy.  They 
transferred  the  two  Phocian  votes  in  their  assembly  to  King  Philip, 
thereby  making  him  a  recognized  member  of  the  Hellenic  state 
system,  and  gave  him  a  share  in  the  presidency  of  the  Pythian 
games,  a  distinction  which  he  was  Greek  enough  to  value  as  not 
much  less  important  than  a  great  political  success.^  For  the  future 
the  king  was  theoretically  acknowledged  as  the  equal  of  his  Hellenic 
neighbors,  and  might  claim  a  right  to  aspire  to  the  same  hegemony 
among  them  that  Sparta,  Athens,  or  Thebes  had  once  enjoyed. 

Delphi  was  soon  full  of  festal  pomp,  when  the  Thebans  and 
Thessalians  joined  the  king  in  celebrating  the  Pythian  games. 
But  at  Athens  there  was  wrath  and  dismay,  for  the  people  had  now 
discovered  why  Philip  had  been  so  anxious  to  make  peace,  and  were 
cursing  their  own  stupidity  and  the  treachery  of  the  envoys  who 
had  aided  the  king  to  hoodwink  them.  For  a  moment  there  was 
actually  some  prospect  of  their  renewing  the  war  with  ]\Iacedon,  so 
bitter  was  their  impotent  rage.  But  Demosthenes,  who  was  now  in 
greater  credit  than  ever,  because  he  had  opposed  the  policy  of  his 
colleagues  in  the  embassy,  set  his  face  against  a  war  which  must 
be  entered  into  without  allies  and  without  preparation,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  diverting  the  anger  of  his  fellow-countrymen  on  to  their 
treacherous  ambassadors.     Philocrates,  the  head  of  the  embassy, 

1  Philip  was  so  proud  of  the  victory  of  his  chariot  at  the  Olympic  games 
that  he  commemorated  its  success  on  the  whole  of  his  gold  coinage. 


470  GREECE 

344  B.C. 

fled  from  Athens  the  moment  that  he  was  impeached.  Aeschines 
stood  his  trial,  and  by  a  most  skillful  defense  just  succeeded  in 
escaping  an  adverse  verdict;  the  dicastery  was  so  evenly  divided 
that  a  transference  of  sixteen  votes  would  have  entailed  his  con- 
demnation. 

Philip  was  now  free  to  extend  the  scope  of  his  ambition;  the 
conquest  of  Phocis  and  the  peace  with  Athens  enabled  him  to  turn 
his  arms  in  new  directions.  His  first  operations  tended  to  dis- 
illusionize his  old  friends  the  Thessalians,  who  had  fondly  imagined 
that  they  would  be  quit  of  him  now  that  the  Sacred  war  was  over. 
Instead  of  withdrawing  his  garrisons  from  the  places  near  Thermop- 
ylae and  on  the  Pagasaean  Gulf,  the  king  took  advantage  of  some 
slight  civil  disturbance,  and  occupied  the  citadels  of  Pherae  and 
other  cities.  Then  "  Decarchies,"  after  the  pattern  of  those  of 
Lysander,  were  put  in  power,  and  Thessaly  found  itself  practically 
incorporated  with  the  kingdom  of  Macedon.  The  free  access  into 
Southern  Greece  which  Philip  had  gained  by  seizing  Thermopylae 
was  next  turned  to  account,  and  the  Macedonian  arms  were  ere  long 
seen  in  the  Peloponnesus. 

The  Peloponnesians  had  only  themselves  to  thank  for  the  intro- 
duction of  the  stranger  into  their  well-guarded  peninsula.  It  was 
their  own  appeal  which  gave  him  the  chance  of  entering.  The  first 
offenders  were  the  oligarchic  party  at  Elis ;  finding  themselves  beset 
by  an  exiled  democratic  faction,  who  had  bought  the  services  of  the 
mercenary  bands  that  had  once  followed  Phalaecus,  they  recklessly 
sought  aid  from  the  king,  and  concluded  an  offensive  and  defensive 
alliance  with  him.  The  Macedonian  auxiliaries  who  came  to  their 
aid  were  soon  employed  elsewhere;  Argos  and  Messene  were  at 
war  with  Sparta,  whose  able  king  Archidamus  (the  son  of  the 
great  Agesilaus)  was  pressing  them  hard.  They  proffered  them- 
selves as  allies  to  Philip,  borrowed  his  troops,  and  by  their  aid 
drove  the  Spartans  back  into  the  valley  of  the  Eurotas  (344  B.C.). 
It  was  in  vain  that  Demosthenes  crossed  into  Peloponnesus  and 
visited  Argos  and  Messene  to  warn  their  statesmen  against  alliance 
with  the  Macedonian,  and  to  remind  them  what  had  been  the  fate 
of  Philip's  friends  of  the  Olynthian  League.  Content  with  their 
momentary  triumph  over  Sparta,  they  refused  to  look  forward, 
and  paid  no  heed  to  the  Athenian  orator.  They  thought  that  they 
had  utilized  for  their  own  purposes  the  aid  of  the  Macedonian, 
and  had  no  conception  that  they  had  bound  themselves  perpetually 
to  the  service  of  a  master. 


Chapter    XLIII 

END  OF  FREEDOM,  344-336  B.C. 

THE  embassy  of  Demosthenes  to  Peloponnesus  marks  the 
beginning  of  a  new  struggle  between  Philip  and  the  Athe- 
nians. It  did  not  suit  Philip  to  precipitate  a  rupture  till 
he  had  established  a  firm  footing  in  Central  and  Southern  Greece. 
The  Athenians,  on  the  other  hand,  had  made  up  their  minds  not  to 
fight  unless  they  could  enlist  powerful  allies ;  but  although  each 
party  avoided  an  open  declaration  of  war,  they  spent  five  years  in 
constant  bickerings,  and  endeavors  to  raise  up  troubles  for  each 
other.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  Athenians  showed  themselves  a 
whit  more  scrupulous  than  the  king;  they  had  learned  to  meet 
Philip  with  his  own  weapons,  and  Demosthenes  was  always  stirring 
them  up  to  counteract  every  move  of  their  enemy.  His  expedition 
to  Peloponnesus,  though  it  proved  fruitless,  was  very  offensive  to 
Philip,  who  sent  an  envoy  to  complain  that  it  was  hard  that  the 
ambassadors  of  a  friendly  power  should  go  about  endeavoring  to 
form  alliances  against  him.  The  Athenian  Ecclesia  made  no 
further  reply  than  to  send  a  commission  to  Pella,  charged  with  the 
duty  of  demanding  back  some  places  of  which  they  claimed  to  have 
been  wrongfully  deprived  in  the  peace  of  346  B.C.  The  king 
treated  the  commissioners  with  studied  rudeness,  but  took  no  further 
notice  of  his  quarrel  with  Athens. 

Philip  was  too  much  engaged  on  the  western  side  of  Greece  to 
be  ready  for  a  new  war  on  the  Aegean.  He  was  just  about  to 
invade  Epirus,  where  he  had  determined  to  overthrow  King  Aryb- 
bas,  and  to  place  on  his  throne  a  rival  claimant,  Alexander,  the 
brother  of  his  own  Epirot  wife  Olympias.  Having  accomplished 
this,  he  pushed  his  arms  as  far  southward  as  the  Ambracian  Gulf. 
Meanwhile  the  Athenians  were  not  idle;  they  harbored  the  ex- 
pelled king  of  Epirus,  sent  troops  to  the  aid  of  the  Acarnanians, 
who  were  threatened  with  invasion,  and  dispatched  emissaries  into 
Thessaly  to  foment  a  revolt  against  Philip  in  that  country.  This 
last  move  brought  the  king  home  in  haste;  he  crossed   Mount 

471 


472  GREECE 

341   B.C. 

Pindus,  appeared  suddenly  in  the  plain  and  overawed  all  the 
malcontent  towns,  whom  he  punished  by  placing  over  them  as 
"  tetrarchs  "  four  Thessalian  nobles  of  his  own  party,  whose  rule 
was  nothing  more  than  a  tyranny  in  disguise. 

It  is  strange  that  the  king  was  not  yet  provoked  into  declaring 
war  on  Athens ;  he  bore  patiently  with  her  intrigues,  and  even 
offered  to  surrender  Halonesus,  an  island  off  Thessaly  which  the 
Athenians  claimed  as  their  own.  The  only  reward  for  his  prudence 
was  that  in  the  next  year  he  had  to  submit  to  an  even  more  flagrant 
violation  of  neutrality.  News  was  brought  him  that  Diopeithes,  the 
Athenian  general  in  command  in  the  Thracian  Chersonese,  had  not 
only  been  molesting  his  merchant  vessels,  but  had  actually  invaded 
Macedonian  territory,  pillaged  the  country,  and  sold  his  prisoners 
as  slaves.  This  could  not  be  passed  over ;  the  king  at  once  sent  a 
peremptory  demand  for  satisfaction  to  Athens,  and  simultaneously 
began  moving  his  main  army  in  the  direction  of  Thrace. 

The  moment  had  now  arrived  at  which  the  Athenians  were 
forced  to  choose  between  peace  and  war.  If  they  recalled  and  pun- 
ished Diopeithes,  the  present  troubled  and  insincere  peace  might 
be  protracted ;  if  they  refused,  they  must  face  the  consequences  and 
arm  for  a  long  and  bitter  struggle.  The  party  of  material  inter- 
ests, and  the  followers  of  Phocion,  who  opposed  the  war  on  prin- 
ciple, joined  with  the  corrupt  friends  of  Philip  in  urging  the  Ecclesia 
to  appease  the  king.  But  Demosthenes  came  forward,  and  in  his 
two  great  speeches,  the  first  "  Concerning  the  Chersonese,"  the 
other  known  as  the  "  Third  Philippic,"  bore  down  all  opposition. 
He  recapitulated  Philip's  aggressions  for  the  last  fifteen  years,  re- 
counted his  broken  oaths  and  agreements,  and  boldly  bade  the 
Athenians  pay  him  back  in  his  own  coin.  "  Philip,"  he  said,  "  pre- 
tends to  keep  the  peace  while  his  armies  are  seizing  or  destroying 
Hellenic  cities  one  after  the  other.  Let  Athens  too  keep  the  peace 
in  name,  but  imitate  the  king  by  prosecuting  a  vigorous  war  in 
reality."  Then  he  proceeded  to  expound  plans  for  concluding  alli- 
ances with  Philip's  enemies,  for  raising  a  permanent  force  for 
foreign  service,  and  for  providing  funds  by  a  stringent  property 
tax. 

The  orator  carried  the  Ecclesia  away  with  him.  Diopeithes 
was  thanked  instead  of  being  recalled,  and  Philip  was  left  to  do 
his  worst.  Hostilities  at  once  broke  out  in  Thrace,  though  war  was 
not  formally  declared  by  either  party.    Demosthenes,  whose  activity 


END    OF    FREEDOM  473 

341-340   B.C. 

during  the  next  three  years  was  untiring,  sailed  at  once  to  Byzan- 
tium, and  succeeded  in  enlisting  in  the  Athenian  alliance  that  im- 
portant city,  now  threatened  by  Philip's  Thracian  conquests.  His 
next  move  was  to  cross  into  Euboea  and  conclude  an  alliance  with 
the  Chalcidians,  who  had  taken  alarm  at  the  extension  of  Philip's 
influence  in  their  island  through  his  partisans  the  tyrants  of  Oreus 
and  Eretria.  In  the  end  of  the  year  Demosthenes  sailed,  in  com- 
pany wuth  Callias  of  Chalcis,  to  Western  Greece,  and  obtained  the 
promise  of  aid  from  Achaia,  Acarnania,  and  Leucas,  while  the  more 
important  cities  of  Corinth  and  Megara  gave  in  their  adherence  a 
little  later  (winter  of  341-340  b.c). 

Meanwhile  Philip  had  turned  from  the  conquest  of  Inner 
Thrace,^  where  he  had  been  engaged  at  the  outbreak  of  hostilities, 
and  marched  against  the  Hellenic  cities  of  the  Propontis,  Perinthus, 
and  Byzantium.  He  intended  to  seize  them,  and  then  to  block  the 
passage  of  the  straits  to  the  Athenian  corn-ships  from  the  Euxine, 
as  Lysander  had  done  seventy  years  before.  He  first  laid  siege  to 
Perinthus,  a  strong  town  seated  on  a  rocky  peninsula  jutting  out 
into  the  sea.  This  siege  occupied  him  for  many  months ;  he  met 
with  a  most  obstinate  resistance,  for,  even  after  the  walls  had  been 
stormed,  the  citizens  resisted  behind  barricades  built  across  their 
steep  and  narrow  streets.  Reinforcements  flowed  into  the  town  from 
Byzantium ;  the  Persian  satraps  of  Asia  Minor,  jealous  of  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  new  power  in  their  neighborhood,  sent  men  and  money 
across  the  water,  and  an  Athenian  general  took  charge  of  the  de- 
fense. Foiled  in  many  attempts  to  break  into  the  town,  Philip  sud- 
denly raised  the  siege  and  marched  on  Byzantium,  which  he  trusted 
to  find  unguarded,  for  its  citizens  had  sent  a  large  contingent  to  the 
aid  of  Perinthus.  The  Byzantines,  however,  were  on  their  guard; 
the  king  found  the  walls  manned,  and  discovered  that  he  had  only 
exchanged  one  siege  for  another.  He  persisted,  however,  in  his 
enterprise,  fixed  his  engines  before  the  ramparts,  threw  a  boom 
across  the  Golden  Horn  to  prevent  the  ships  of  the  besieged  from 
getting  out,  and  brought  up  his  own  fleet  from  the  Aegean  to  form 
the  blockade  on  the  side  of  the  sea.  One  desperate  attempt  to 
escalade  the  land-wall  on  a  dark  night  failed,  it  is  said,  owing  to 
the  sudden  appearance  of  a  light  in  heaven   (perhaps  the  Aurora 

1  He  had  founded  in  342  B.C.  the  town  of  PhilippoHs,  on  the  Upper  Stry- 
mon,  as  his  outpost  in  this  direction,  and  seems  to  have  been  in  those  parts  for 
most  of  the  year  341  B.C. 


474.  GREECE 

339    B.C. 

Borealis),  which  the  Byzantines  took  as  a  special  token  of  divine 
aid. 

Meanwhile  the  Athenians,  unceasingly  stirred  tip  to  action  by 
Demosthenes,  were  carrying  all  before  them  in  the  south.  With  the 
aid  of  the  Chalcidians  they  swept  the  troops  of  Philip  and  of  the 
tyrants  of  Oreus  and  Eretria  out  of  Euboea.  Then  landing  in  Thes- 
saly,  they  stormed  the  fortress  of  Pagasae,  and  made  prize  of  a  great 
number  of  the  king's  merchant  vessels.  When  the  news  of  the  siege 
of  Byzantium  arrived,  they  at  last  declared  open  war  on  Philip,  and 
preparations  were  made  for  an  expedition  to  the  Bosphorus.  A 
squadron  sent  ahead  under  Chares  drove  off  the  Macedonian  fleet, 
but  did  not  raise  the  siege.  A  large  force  was  then  placed  under 
Phocion,  who,  though  he  had  opposed  the  declaration  of  war,  was 
far  too  patriotic  to  refuse  his  best  help  to  his  native  city  in  her 
hour  of  danger.  With  a  hundred  and  twenty  triremes  behind  him, 
Phocion  passed  up  the  Hellespont  and  sought  out  the  Macedonians. 
Pliilip  then  gave  up  the  siege  in  despair — his  ranks  were  thinned 
and  his  men  demoralized — and  plunged  inland  out  of  the  reach  of 
the  enemy.  Probably  he  was  forced  in  the  hour  of  disaster  to 
take  every  precaution  to  hold  down  his  wild  subjects  in  Inner 
Thrace. 

Philip  for  the  second  time  in  his  career  had  suffered  a  hu- 
miliating check,  and  the  joy  at  Athens  over  the  defeat  of  the  ancient 
enemy  was  correspondingly  great.  Demosthenes,  who  had  so  con- 
stantly predicted  the  possibility  of  a  victory  which  most  men  con- 
sidered unlikely,  was  at  the  summit  of  his  career.  After  the  victories 
in  Euboea,  his  joyful  fellow-citizens  had  voted  him  a  golden  crown 
for  civic  virtue,  and  no  one  for  the  future  ventured  to  dispute  his 
ascendency  with  the  Ecclesia.  All  the  decrees  he  proposed  passed 
without  a  question,  even  one  which  devoted  to  the  war-chest  the 
The5ric  fund,  or  sum  annually  set  apart  by  the  state  for  public  fes- 
tivals and  ceremonies.  Perhaps  the  most  useful  of  Demosthenes's 
measures  was  reform  in  the  machinery  for  providing  the  state  navy 
which  worked  so  well  that  not  a  ship  was  lost  or  disabled  during 
the  whole  course  of  the  war. 

For  nine  months  Philip  was  lost  to  sight  after  his  repulse  from 
Byzantium.  Posted  in  the  Thracian  inland,  he  was  fighting  hard 
to  preserve  his  dominions  from  the  wild  Scythians  and  Triballs 
v/ho  lay  along  his  northern  frontier.  It  was  not  till  late  in  the 
summer  of  339  b.c.  that  he  emerged  from  the  northern  darkness 


END    OF    FREEDOM  475 

339   B.C. 

victorious  but  well-nigh  disabled  for  active  serv'ice  by  a  wound 
received  in  battle  with  the  Triballi.  Meanwhile  the  Athenians  had 
been  harassing  the  coast-line  of  his  wide  possessions,  but  had  taken 
no  decisive  measures  to  attack  him  at  home.  Some  of  their  allies, 
among  them  the  ungrateful  Byzantines,  had  grown  convinced  that 
the  war  was  practically  over,  and  had  actually  sent  home  their  con- 
tingents after  making  a  declaration  of  neutrality.  Unfortunately 
the  triumph  of  the  Athenians  was  destined  to  be  short-lived,  and 
events  were  ripening  for  an  unforeseen  disaster. 

The  new  troubles  sprang  from  an  unexpected  quarter.  The 
orator  Aeschines,  in  spite  of  his  narrow  escape  from  a  condemnation 
for  treason  in  343  b.c,  had  retained  credit  enough  in  the  city 
to  be  named  as  one  of  the  xA.thenian  delegates  at  the  Am- 
phictyonic  meeting  of  339  B.C.  While  acting  in  this  capacity  at 
Delphi,  he  had  a  violent  altercation  with  the  deputies  of  the  Locrians 
of  Amphissa.  Whether  carried  away  by  the  unhappy  inspiration 
of  the  moment,  or  suborned — as  his  enemies  declared — by  Mace- 
donian gold.  Aeschines  suddenly  accused  the  Locrians  of  having* 
committed  sacrilege  against  Apollo.  They  had,  so  he  declared,  imi- 
tated the  evil  deeds  of  the  Phocians  by  trespassing  on  waste  land 
sacred  to  the  god,  and  building  houses,  barns,  and  potters'  kilns  upon 
it.  Stirred  up  by  the  orator's  fiery  periods,  a  great  mob  of  Delphians, 
accompanied  by  most  of  the  Amphictyonic  deputies,  went  down  to 
the  debatable  ground,  and  burned  or  cast  down  all  the  buildings 
upon  it.  While  they  were  thus  engaged,  the  Locrians,  armed  and  in 
great  wrath,  came  up  from  their  city  of  Amphissa.  fell  upon  the 
mob,  wounded  some,  captured  many,  and  drove  the  rest  in  rout 
back  to  Delphi.  Next  day  the  Amphictyons  prorogued  their  ordi- 
nary meeting,  and  called  a  special  assembly  to  take  into  considera- 
tion the  sacrilege  and  violence  of  the  Locrians.  The  special  as- 
sembly was  of  a  most  unrepresentative  kind;  Demosthenes  had 
persuaded  the  Athenians  to  withdraw  their  delegates,  while  the 
Thebans  stayed  away  because  they  were  old  friends  of  the  Am- 
phissians.  The  main  part  of  the  delegates  who  appeared  were  from 
the  Thessalian,  Oetaean,  and  ]\Ialian  states,  who  were  all  more 
or  less  under  Macedonian  influence.  They  put  the  Locrians  under 
the  ban,  declared  war  on  them,  and  soon  afterwards  appointed  King 
Philip  their  commander-in-chief,  and  begged  him  to  take  charge 
of  the  business.  It  seems  likely  that  the  whole  of  this  comedy  had 
been  arranged  beforehand,   that  Aeschines  had  been  paid  to  stir 


476  GREECE 

338    B.C. 

up  a  disturbance,  and  that  the  Amphictyons  had  from  the  first  no 
other  purpose  than  to  find  an  excuse  for  bringing  Phihp's  army- 
down  into  Central  Greece. 

The  king  was  quite  ready  to  take  up  the  game ;  the  heads  of 
his  cokimns  were  soon  passing  the  defiles  of  Othrys,  and  he  himself 
— the  moment  that  his  wound  was  healed — came  southward  to 
assume  the  command.  When  he  reached  Thermopylae  the  anxiety 
of  the  Athenians  became  painful;  it  was  quite  impossible  to  know 
whether  Philip  would  really  move  against  Amphissa,  or  whether 
he  was  aiming  at  Athens,  having  secured  by  an  agreement  with  the 
Thebans  the  permission  to  pass  through  the  neutral  territory  of 
Boeotia.  The  doubt  was  soon  solved ;  one  autumn  evening  a  courier 
reached  Athens  with  the  news  that  the  king's  vanguard  had  seized 
and  was  fortifying  Elateia,  the  dismantled  Phocian  city  on  the 
Boeotian  frontier  which  commanded  the  road  down  the  valley  of 
the  Cephissus.  Demosthenes  has  left  us  a  vivid  picture  of  the  con- 
sternation which  the  tidings  caused.  Some  ran  to  drive  the  buyers 
and  sellers  out  of  the  market-place,  some  burned  the  wicker  booths 
which  encumbered  it,  others  caused  the  trumpeters  to  sound  the 
alarm  round  the  city,  others  rushed  to  the  houses  of  the  strategi  to 
bid  them  assemble.  The  Ecclesia  met  almost  before  daybreak,  but 
when  it  was  gathered  no  man  dared  face  the  crisis,  till  Demosthenes 
stood  forward  and  comforted  the  desponding  crowd  by  a  vigorous 
harangue.  While  bidding  them  take  all  possible  measures  for  the 
defense  of  the  city,  he  pointed  out  that  the  danger  was  perhaps 
not  so  close  as  they  imagined.  Everything  depended  on  the  The- 
bans; if  they  were  secretly  allied  with  Philip  the  war  must  come  into 
Attica,  but  if  they  were  not,  it  might  still  be  kept  far  off.  He  him- 
self volunteered  to  set  out  at  once,  to  implore  the  Thebans  not  to 
grant  the  king  a  free  passage,  or,  if  possible,  to  induce  them  to 
join  the  Athenian  alliance.  It  is  the  greatest  testimony  to  the  power 
of  his  oratory  that  he  actually  succeeded  in  carrying  out  the  more 
difficult  of  the  two  alternatives.  Macedonian  ambassadors  stood 
forward  in  the  Theban  assembly  promising  all  manner  of  bribes 
the  Boeotians  and  the  Athenians  had  been  ill  neighbors  to  each 
other  for  the  last  thirty  years,  and  a  powerful  army  hung  on  the 
frontier  ready  to  cross  it  the  moment  that  Philip's  requests  were 
refused.  Yet  the  orator  induced  the  Thebans  to  send  away  the 
king's  ambassadors  and  conclude  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance 
with  Athens. 


ENDOFFREEDOM  477 

338   B.C. 

Fighting  at  once  began  on  the  Boeotian  frontier,  and  for  sev- 
eral months  an  indecisive  struggle  was  carried  on  upon  each  of 
the  two  main  routes  which  lead  from  the  Phocian  hills  towards 
Thebes.  The  Locrians  of  Amphissa,  supported  by  ten  thousand 
mercenaries  hired  by  Athens,  watched  the  southern  route  near  the 
Gulf  of  Corinth — that  which  Cleombrotus  the  Spartan  had  used 
in  the  campaign  of  Leuctra.  The  whole  home-levy  of  Athens 
and  Thebes  held  the  narrow  front  in  the  valley  of  the  Cephis- 
sus  between  the  spurs  of  Cnemis  and  Parnassus,  where  so  many 
battles  had  already  taken  place  in  Greek  history.  Ere  long 
they  were  joined  by  large  contingents  from  the  states  which  Demos- 
thenes a  year  before  had  drawn  into  the  Athenian  alliance — Corinth, 
Megara,  Achaia,  and  the  rest;  the  whole  army  would  seem  to  have 
numbered  somewhat  over  thirty  thousand  men.  Philip's  force  was 
about  the  same;  he  had  calculated  on  assistance  from  Peloponnesus, 
but  his  allies,  the  Eleians  and  Argives,  preferred  to  wait  till  the  for- 
tune of  war  ran  definitely  in  his  favor  before  committing  themselves. 
In  two  partial  engagements  the  confederate  army  had  the  best  of 
the  fight,  and  it  was  with  good  hopes  of  victory  that  its  generals — 
the  Athenians  Chares  and  Lysicles  and  the  Theban  Theagenes— 
drew  up  their  forces  in  front  of  Chaeroneia  for  a  decisive  battle,  on 
the  2d  of  August,  338  B.C. 

The  details  of  the  struggle  are  not  so  well  known  to  us  as 
those  of  many  less  decisive  conflicts  in  Grecian  history.  We  gather 
that  in  the  confederate  host  the  Thebans  held  the  right  wing,  the 
Athenians  the  left,  while  the  Corinthians  and  other  smaller  con- 
tingents formed  the  center.  In  the  Macedonian  army  the  king  faced 
the  Athenians,  and  his  son  Alexander — a  youth  of  eighteen  who 
now  saw  his  first  field — had  the  Thebans  opposite  him.  It  would 
seem  that  Philip  had  resolved  to  throw  the  main  weight  of  his  army 
upon  the  enemy's  right;  he  dreaded  the  Boeotian  phalanx  which 
had  wrought  such  wonders  at  Corneia,  Leuctra,  and  Mantinea. 
While  the  king  fought  cautiously  with  the  Athenians,  and  even  gave 
ground  before  their  first  attack,  his  son  delivered  a  series  of  furious 
charges  upon  the  Thebans.  The  memories  of  Epaminondas  and 
Pelopidas  were  not  dead,  and  the  Boeotians  made  a  gallant  fight; 
but  their  short  spears  were  unable  to  cope  with  the  enormously 
long  pikes  of  the  Macedonian  phalanx,  while  their  cavalry  was  out- 
numbered and  driven  off  the  field.  Theagenes,  the  Theban  general, 
was  slain,  the  three  hundred  chosen  hoplites  of  the  "  Sacred  Band  " 


478  GREECE 

338  B.C. 

fell  to  a  man,  and  then  the  Boeotians  broke  before  the  cavalry  of 
Alexander.  The  rout  of  the  confederate  right  left  the  center  ex- 
posed, and  ere  long  it  was  driven  off  the  field.  Finally  the  Athenians, 
who  had  been  waging  a  not  unsuccessful  fight  with  Philip,  were 
almost  surrounded,  so  that  to  escape  capture  they  had  to  disperse 
and  fly.  A  thousand  of  them  were  slain,  two  thousand  taken  pris- 
oners; the  Thebans'  loss,  mainly  in  dead,  was  even  greater,  and 
the  allies  in  the  center  also  suffered  heavily.  So  ended  this  well- 
fought  battle,  for  which  Greece  had  no  cause  to  blame  her  soldiers ; 
but  she  might  well  ask  herself  in  shame  why  Athens,  Thebes,  and 
Corinth  were  left  almost  alone  to  fight  the  battle  of  Hellenic  liberty. 
Elis  and  Argos,  Arcadia  and  Messene,  were  standing  apart  in  sel- 
fish prudence;  Thessaly  sent  her  horsemen  to  help  the  Macedonian 
stranger.  Once  more  the  narrow  spirit  of  local  ambition  had  proved 
the  evil  genius  of  Greece ;  but  now  it  was  no  passing  trouble  which 
it  had  brought  upon  the  Hellenes,  but  the  doom  of  permanent  sub- 
jection to  the  half-barbarian  kingdom  in  the  north. 

Philip  had  now  achieved  the  ambition  of  his  lifetime;  Athens 
and  Greece  were  at  his  feet,  and  his  exultation  burst  forth  for  the 
moment  in  the  most  unseemly  guise.  The  evening  after  the  victory 
he  spent  in  a  royal  drinking  bout,  and  at  night  he  is  said  to  have 
reeled  off  to  the  battle-field  and  to  have  danced  among  the  corpses, 
while  he  trolled  out  as  a  song  the  preamble  of  a  decree  of  Demos- 
thenes which  happened  to  have  the  rhythm  of  a  verse.  A  bystander 
recalled  him  to  his  better  self  by  reminding  him  that  "  the  gods  had 
given  him  the  part  of  Agamemnon  to  play,  though  he  seemed  to 
prefer  to  take  up  that  of  Thersites,"  But  when  the  king  had  sobered 
down,  he  showed  an  even  greater  moderation  in  the  hour  of  victory 
than  he  had  displayed  in  345  B.C.  after  the  conquest  of  Phocis. 
When  Thebes  surrendered  to  him,  a  few  days  after  the  battle,  he 
only  claimed  from  her  a  treaty  of  alliance,  the  recognition  of  the 
autonomy  of  the  smaller  Boeotian  cities,  and  the  right  to  place  a 
Macedonian  garrison  in  the  Cadmeia.  Athens  fared  even  better; 
the  citizens,  buoyed  up  by  the  hopeful  energy  of  Demosthenes,  who 
would  not  despair  even  in  the  hour  of  disaster,  had  prepared  for  a 
fierce  resistance  behind  their  walls.  But  when  Philip  sent  back 
their  prisoners  without  a  ransom,  and  let  it  be  known  that  the  only 
thing  he  required  was  the  cession  of  the  Thracian  Chersonese  and 
the  signature  of  a  treaty  acknowledging  his  hegemony,  the  desire 
to  resist  died  away.      When  the  peace  had  been  signed  Philip  gave 


END    OF    FREEDOM  479 

338   B.C. 

to  Athens,  as  a  pledge  of  his  good  will,  the  town  of  Oropus,  which 
the  Boeotians  had  taken  from  her  thirty  years  ago. 

Megara  and  Corinth  followed  the  example  of  Athens  in 
promptly  submitting  to  the  king,  and  he  was  soon  able  to  summon 
within  the  walls  of  the  latter  town  a  congress  of  all  the  states  of 
Greece.  Not  a  single  city  refused  to  send  her  delegates  to  do  hom- 
age to  the  king  save  Sparta  alone,  who  retained  all  her  ancient  pride, 
though  she  had  now  become  a  small  and  decayed  state,  oppressed 
by  wars  with  her  Argive  and  Messenian  neighbors.  There  was 
something  grand  in  the  struggle  of  the  Spartans  against  the  over- 
whelming odds  that  Philip  brought  against  them.  Though  all 
Greece  followed  the  Macedonian  banner.  King  Agis  III.  led  out  his 
little  army  with  as  much  confidence,  and  fought  with  as  dogged  a 
courage,  as  had  Leonidas  or  Agesilaus  in  the  days  of  old.^  Sparta 
paid  for  her  obstinacy  by  seeing  Thyrea  and  the  Sciritis,  the  prizes 
of  her  ancient  victories  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries,  torn  from 
her  grasp  and  given  to  her  Argive  and  Arcadian  enemies. 

The  congress  which  met  at  Corinth  under  King  Philip's  presi- 
dency, in  the  autumn  of  338  B.C.,  was  the  most  representative  body 
which  Greece  had  ever  seen.  Even  the  great  assembly  of  481  b.c.^ 
which  had  gathered  on  the  news  of  the  approach  of  Xerxes,  had 
counted  less  members.  It  was  only  the  strong  hand  of  the  master 
that  could  gather  together  the  delegates  of  every  Hellenic  state  for 
a  common  end ;  of  their  own  accord  the  blind  and  selfish  cities  would 
never  have  combined  for  any  purpose,  however  great  and  good. 
The  king  laid  before  the  deputies  the  draft  of  a  document  which 
practically  formed  Greece  into  one  great  federal  state,  under  Mace- 
donian presidency.  Every  city  was  to  be  "  free  and  autonomous," 
but  in  the  same  sense  that  Antalcidas  had  used  the  word  fifty  years 
before.  Each  was  bound  to  Macedon  by  *  a  stringent  treaty 
of  alliance,  but  a  very  considerable  degree  of  local  freedom 
was  allowed ;  for  example,  Philip  did  not  call  for  the  banishment  of 
Demosthenes  or  any  other  statesman  who  had  opposed  his  plans, 
or  impose  new  constitutions  on  unwilling  states.  A  federal  council 
was  established  to  aid  the  king  in  administering  the  land,  and  the 
Amphictyons — who  had  twice  served  Philip  so  well — were  consti- 
tuted the  supreme  legal  arbiters  between  state  and  state.  All  this 
seemed  fair  and  wise;  but  the  other  aspect  of  affairs  was  marked 

2  Archidamus,  the  father  of  Agis,  was  slain  in  Italy  on  the  same  day  as  the 
battle  of  Chaeroneia. 


480  GREECE 

336   B.C. 

by  the  establishment  of  permanent  Macedonian  garrisons  at  Thebes, 
Corinth,  Chalcis,  and  Ambracia,  and  by  the  clause  which  declared 
Philip  supreme  commander  of  the  warlike  forces  of  the  whole  con- 
federacy, and  made  disobedience  to  him  into  treason. 

Thus  Greece  received  a  formal  constitution — a  thing  which 
neither  Sparta,  Athens,  nor  Thebes  had  ever  been  able  to  force  upon 
her.  It  was  a  far  better  one  than  might  have  been  expected  from 
the  antecedents  of  the  man  who  drafted  it,  but  Philip's  versatile 
mind  was  capable  of  unexpected  acts  of  moderation  and  even  of 
generosity.  In  spite  of  occasional  outbursts  of  Macedonian  bar- 
barism, he  had  become  very  Hellenic  in  his  methods  of  thought, 
and — so  far  as  was  compatible  with  his  own  ends — paid  a  sincere 
attention  to  Greek  prejudice  in  drawing  up  the  treaty  of  Corinth. 
If  fairly  worked  by  a  conscientious  ruler,  it  would  have  been  a 
far  more  just  and  promising  basis  for  the  union  of  Greece  than  were 
any  of  the  arrangements  which  Sparta  and  Athens  had  tried  to  force 
on  their  reluctant  neighbors. 

To  provide  the  new  Greek  federation  with  a  common  end,  likely 
to  stir  up  national  enthusiasm  but  not  to  prove  dangerous  to  his 
own  hegemony,  Philip  gave  out  that  he  was  about  to  take  up  the 
old  plans  of  Cimon  and  Agesilaus,  and  to  lead  the  whole  force 
of  Greece  eastward  for  a  grand  attack  on  the  old  national  enemy, 
the  Persian  king.  How  far  the  project  excited  genuine  zeal  in 
Greece  we  cannot  exactly  tell,  but  sea  and  land  contingents  were 
voted  with  alacrity  by  the  congress,  and  it  was  calculated  that,  if 
every  state  did  its  best,  two  hundred  thousand  men  could  be  col- 
lected to  overrun  Asia.  The  scheme  was  to  take  effect  in  336 
B.C.,  the  intervening  year  being  devoted  to  the  necessary  prepara- 
tions. 

But  Philip  was  never  destined  to  cross  the  Plellespont.  He 
was  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  victory  for  less  than  two  years,  and 
to  die  without  having  accomplished  any  of  his  new  plans.  The 
summer  of  336  B.C.  was  come;  a  Macedonian  force  under  the 
generals  Attains  and  Parmenio  had  actually  crossed  into  i\Iysia, 
and  all  Greece  was  filled  with  the  preparations  for  the  invasion, 
when  the  news  suddenly  arrived  that  Philip  had  been  assassinated. 
It  was  not  the  outraged  patriotism  of  any  of  the  Greeks  that  had 
inspired  the  deed,  but  the  private  grudge  of  one  of  the  king's  own 
subjects. 

Philip,   in  violation  of  Hellenic  usage,   had   married   several 


ENDOFFREEDOM  481 

336   B.C. 

wives,  both  Greek  and  foreign;  but  his  recognized  consort  was  the 
Epirot  Princess  Olympias,  mother  of  his  heir,  Alexander  the  Great. 
This  lady  the  king  had  just  divorced  and  sent  back  to  Epirus,  to 
the  great  wrath  of  her  fiery  son.  In  her  stead  he  had  taken  as  his 
chief  wife  Cleopatra,  the  niece  of  his  general,  Attains.  The  friends 
of  Olympias  and  Alexander  were  much  enraged  with  Philip  for 
wrecking  the  hopes  which  they  had  built  on  their  favor  with 
the  late  queen,  and  cast  about  for  a  means  of  revenge.  They  found 
a  young  Macedonian  noble  named  Pausanias,  who  had  just  suffered 
an  outrage  at  the  hands  of  Attains,  the  new  queen's  uncle.  The 
young  man  had  sought  justice  from  Philip,  but  it  had  been  denied 
him,  and  he  was  filled  with  ungovernable  resentment  against  both 
king  and  general.  It  required  small  persuasion  to  turn  his  anger 
into  action.  Philip  was  celebrating  at  Aegae  the  marriage  of  one 
of  his  daughters.  On  the  second  day  of  the  festival  there  was  a 
splendid  procession,  in  which,  as  men  noted  with  disapproval,  the 
king's  image  was  presumptuously  borne  along  in  company  with 
those  of  the  twelve  great  gods  of  Olympus.  He  himself  walked  in 
the  procession  crowned  and  robed  in  white,  but  quite  unprotected, 
for  he  had  bidden  his  guards  to  keep  apart,  "  because  he  had 
sufficient  security  in  the  good  will  of  all  Greece."  As  he  entered 
the  theater  Pausanias  sprang  out  from  among  the  spectators  and 
thrust  him  through  with  a  short  sword  which  he  had  hidden  under 
his  cloak.  The  king  fell  dead;  the  assassin  tried  to  make  off,  but 
stumbled  in  his  flight,  and  was  cut  down  before  he  got  to  his  feet. 

So  died  King  Philip,  in  the  forty-seventh  year  of  his  age  and 
the  twenty-fourth  of  his  reign,  when  all  the  world  was  expecting 
from  him  even  greater  exploits  than  he  had  already  performed. 
Greece  thought  for  the  moment  that  she  was  once  more  free; 
Athenian  patriots,  forgetting  the  mercy  that  had  been  shown  them 
two  years  before,  began  to  get  ready  their  sacrifices  and  libations. 
But  a  man  who  had  grasped  the  real  lesson  of  the  times  rebuked 
them.  "  Nothing,"  said  Phocion,  "  shows  greater  meanness  of 
spirit  than  expressions  of  joy  on  the  death  of  an  enemy.  Remember 
that  the  army  you  fought  at  Chaeroneia  is  lessened  by  only  one 
man." 

He  was  right.  Philip  was  dead,  but  Philip's  army  and 
Philip's  system  were  alive,  and,  what  was  more,  the  Greeks  were 
perfectly  unchanged.  Their  petty  jealousies  were  as  lively  as  ever, 
their  border-feuds  as  venomous,  their  statesmen  as  venal  and  short- 


i82  GREECE 

336    B.C. 

sighted.  In  spite  of  all  our  sympathy  for  individuals  such  as 
Demosthenes,  we  cannot  feel  that  the  chaotic  state  system  which 
had  prevailed  since  the  death  of  Epaminondas  deserved  to  survive. 
Greece  under  Philip  would  have  been  happier,  richer,  and  better 
governed  than  that  Greece, — split  up  into  twenty  bickering  states, 
which  combined  with  kaleidoscopic  variety  into  new  political  forms 
every  three  or  four  years, — whose  history  we  have  been  investi- 
gating. 


TIIK    Vorxr,    ALEXANDER    TAMES     I'.Lt  El' H  A  LI'S.    THE    HORSE    AFRAID    OF 
OWN    SIIADnW.    I'A'    FACIXC    HIM    TOWARD    THE    S  T  .\ 

I\unli:ig   /'v   /'.    Sch('iiiii;.:r 


Chapter    XLIV 

ALEXANDER  THE  GREAT,  336-323  B.C. 

THE  Greek  world  knew  little  of  the  young  man  whom  the 
sudden  death  of  Philip  had  called  to  the  throne  of  Mace- 
donia. That  he  was  fiery  and  headstrong  no  one  who 
had  seen  him  charge  the  Theban  phalanx  at  Chaeroneia,  or  heard 
him  wrangle  with  his  imperious  father,  could  doubt.  But  nothing 
more  was  known  of  him :  he  was  believed  to  be  a  rash,  conceited 
boy,  fit  perhaps  to  lead  a  squadron  of  horse,  but  for  nothing  more. 
Demosthenes  congratulated  the  Athenians  that  "  Margites "  had 
come  to  the  throne  of  Macedon,  applying  to  the  new  king  the  name 
of  a  stupid,  quarrelsome  boaster  in  a  well-known  comic  poem 
ascribed  to  Homer. 

But  the  power  of  Philip  had  in  reality  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
a  man  even  greater  than  Philip  himself — one  of  the  most  extraor- 
dinary characters  that  Europe  has  ever  known,  a  man  whose 
personality  was  to  be  impressed  on  the  history  of  the  world  for  a 
thousand  years,  ^  and  whose  biography  forms  an  epic  poem  in 
real  life.  Alexander  had  been  brought  up  under  influences  that 
would  have  fired  even  a  less  enthusiastic  soul  than  his.  His  mother, 
Olympias,  a  princess  of  Epirus,  was  a  fiery,  ambitious  woman  with  a 
dash  of  superstition  in  her  mind.  She  taught  Alexander  that  he 
was  through  the  Epirot  kings  descended  from  Achilles,  the  hero  of 
the  tale  of  Troy,  and  bade  him  rival  the  great  deeds  of  his  ancestor. 
His  first  tutor  is  said  to  have  won  his  heart  by  always  calling  him 
by  the  name  of  the  prince  in  the  Iliad,  and  styling  Philip  Peleus, 
and  himself  Phoenix — 'the  traditionary  preceptor  of  Achilles. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  Alexander  had  the  tale  of  Achilles  on  his 
brain:  more  than  once  in  his  life  we  shall  mark  the  effect  of  this 
ancestor-worship  on  his  behavior.  Pie  knew  the  Iliad  by  heart, 
always  carried  a  copy  of  it  with  him  on  his  campaigns,  and  modeled 
his  own  character  on  that  of  the  fiery  Homeric  chiefs.     But  there 

^  The  permanent  effect  of  Alexander's  work  in  the  Hellenization  of  Syria, 
Asia  Minor,  and  Egypt  endured  till  the  Mohammedan  conquest  of  those  countries 
in  the  seventh  century  a.d. 

483 


484  GREECE 

333  B  C. 

were  other  strains  in  his  character  besides  that  of  the  generous 
knight-errant  of  the  old  romances :  he  had  a  strong  infusion  of  the 
unscrupulous  energy  of  Philip :  those  who  crossed  his  path  or 
merely  incurred  his  suspicion  he  swept  away  without  pity  or 
remorse.  As  he  grew  older  he  grew  as  conscienceless  as  his  father, 
and  far  more  cruel  than  Philip  had  ever  been.  Alexander,  how- 
ever, was  more  than  adventurous  and  unscrupulous — as  fifty  con- 
quering kings  besides  him  have  been — he  was  also  imbued  with  a 
broad  desire  for  knowledge  of  all  sorts ;  there  was  a  taste  for  dis- 
covery and  research  in  him :  he  sought  information  of  all  sorts  for 
its  own  sake,  and  loved  to  organize  almost  as  much  as  to  conquer. 
This  side  of  his  disposition  must  have  developed  freely  under  the 
teaching  of  Aristotle,  the  great  philosopher  whom  Philip  made  his 
tutor  when  he  reached  the  age  of  thirteen.  The  omnivorous  appe- 
tite for  knowledge  which  inspired  Aristotle,  and  ranged  over  every 
subject  from  botany  to  metaphysics  and  from  constitutional  history 
to  morals,  seems  to  have  influenced  Alexander  also  to  no  small 
extent.  The  clever,  inquisitive,  restless  Greek  mind  was  developed 
in  the  pupil  as  in  the  teacher. 

But  the  quality  which  enabled  Alexander  to  leave  his  mark  on 
history  was  his  military  talent.  He  was  a  heaven-born  general, 
and  was  besides  brought  up  with  every  advantage  that  he  could 
have  desired.  He  learned  from  his  father  how  to  deal  both  with 
Greek  and  barbarian  enemies,  and  how  to  handle  with  perfection 
the  great  military  machine  which  Philip  had  organized  for  him. 
Alexander  was  one  of  the  generals  who  win  by  rapid  strokes  and 
daring  expedients.  His  long  marches  were  perhaps  the  most  char- 
acteristic part  of  his  career :  urged  on  by  him  his  armies  appeared 
to  be  able  to  annihilate  time  and  space:  the  rapidity  of  their  motion 
was  almost  incredible :  he  was  on  the  spot  when  his  enemies  believed 
him  to  be  hundreds  of  miles  away.  And  when  once  arrived,  Alex- 
ander had  an  eagle  eye  for  seizing  the  moment  to  strike :  he  hardly 
ever  made  a  mistake:  his  attacks,  however  reckless,  succeeded  to 
a  miracle.  He  was  above  all  things  a  cavalry  general :  it  was  the 
irresistible  charge  of  his  heavy  life-guards,  with  himself  in  the  van 
leading  them  on.  that  always  won  his  battles.  The  steady  Mace- 
donian phalanx,  with  its  impenetrable  hedge  of  spears,  was  only 
the  secondary  tool  in  the  hewing  out  of  his  victories.  While  the 
great  mass  of  infantry  rolled  like  a  hedgehog  into  the  midst  of 
the  enemy,   occupied   their  attention,   beat  off  their   attacks,   and 


ARISTOTLE 

(Rurn    384    B.C.      Died    322    b.  c.) 

Marble  bust  in  the  Capitolinc  Museum,  Naples 


ALEXANDER  485 

336    B.C. 

exhausted  their  energy,  it  was  always  the  wild  onset  of  the  king 
and  his  "  Companions  "  of  the  Macedonian  horse  that  settled  the 
day. 

But  the  Greeks  had  as  yet  no  knowledge  of  the  man  with  whom 
they  had  to  deal.  That  he  was  determined  and  unscrupulous  they 
soon  realized,  when  the  news  came  that  at  the  moment  of  his 
accession  he  had  executed  everyone  likely  to  be  a  rival  to  him:  his 
father's  infant  son  by  Cleopatra,  Attalus  the  uncle  of  Cleopatra, 
Amyntas  the  heir  of  his  father's  elder  brother,  and  several  more. 
But  murders  were  common  in  the  Macedonian  royal  house,  and 
Alexander's  conduct  was  as  yet  nothing  exceptional.  It  was  his 
next  step  that  made  men  speak  of  him  with  respect. 

The  moment  that  Philip  was  dead  all  Greece  gave  a  sigh  of 
relief,  and  prepared  to  forget  the  Macedonian  and  recommence  its 
usual  intrigues  and  wars.  Sparta  began  to  stir;  Argos  and  Elis 
armed  themselves;  the  Ambraciots  expelled  their  Macedonian  gar- 
rison; the  Athenians  burst  out  into  patriotic  oratory,  and  com- 
menced an  intrigue  with  Persia  to  get  money  to  raise  a  fleet.  But 
before  anything  more  serious  was  done,  Alexander  swooped  down 
among  them  with  thirty  thousand  men  at  his  back.  Caught  unpre- 
pared, the  Greek  states  were  compelled  to  renew  with  him  the 
treaties  they  had  made  with  his  father,  and  to  elect  him  to  the 
position  of  supreme  commander  of  the  Hellenic  confederacy.  After 
a  short  stay  at  Corinth  to  meet  the  congress  of  allies,  and  a  rapid 
march  round  Peloponnesus,  he  hastened  home  again.  The  bar- 
barians on  the  northern  frontier  of  Macedon  had  broken  loose  and 
required  his  curbing  hand.     (Autumn  of  336  B.C.) 

In  six  months  Alexander  accomplished  almost  as  much  against 
his  wild  northern  neighbors  as  Philip  had  done  in  ten  years.  One 
short  campaign  crushed  the  Thracians  and  Triballi,  and  carried  the 
Macedonian  arms  even  beyond  the  Danube.  Another  subdued  the 
warlike  Illyrians,  and  compelled  them  to  do  homage  as  vassals  of 
the  Macedonian  crown.  But  while  Alexander  was  absent  in  the 
northern  wilds,  a  false  rumor  of  his  death  reached  Greece:  the 
Thebans  at  once  broke  out  into  revolt  and  besieged  the  Macedonian 
garrison  in  their  citadel.  They  sent  for  aid  to  their  neighbors 
of  Athens.  Demosthenes,  now  as  always,  urged  on  war  with 
Macedon,  and  the  temper  of  the  Ecclesia  was  not  unfavorable.  But 
Athens  was  cautious  and  dilatory ;  nothing  positive  was  done,  save 
that  Demosthenes  crossed  into   Peloponnesus   and  persuaded  the 


486  GREECE 

336-335    B.C. 

Arcadian  League  and  Elis  to  declare  in  favor  of  Thebes.  But  while 
Demosthenes  was  talking  Alexander  acted.  Before  it  was  known 
that  he  was  not  dead  he  suddenly  appeared  in  Boeotia.  He  had 
marched  right  through  from  Illyria,  over  countless  passes  and 
valleys,  covering  in  thirteen  days  two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of 
indifferent  road.  The  Thebans,  unaided  by  any  ally,  boldly  faced 
the  king:  they  fortified  an  entrenched  position  in  front  of  their 
city  and  fought  a  decisive  battle  outside  the  gates. 

Outnumbered  and  outgeneraled,  the  Thebans  were  doomed  to 
fail.  They  were  beaten,  and  the  Macedonians  entered  the  gates 
with  the  flying  enemy.  A  desperate  street-fight  followed,  but 
Alexander  at  last  cut  his  way  to  the  market-place.  Six  thousand 
Thebans  fell,  and  the  whole  city  was  in  the  hands  of  the  conqueror. 
The  king  was  determined  to  make  an  example  of  the  place :  he 
bade  his  Greek  allies,  the  Phocians  and  other  neighbors  and  enemies 
of  Thebes,  sit  in  judgment  on  the  vanquished.  They  voted — as  the 
king  intended — that  Thebes  should  be  destroyed.  Thirty  thou- 
sand Thebans  were  ruthlessly  sold  into  slavery ;  the  walls  and 
houses  were  cast  down,  and  the  territory  divided  among  the  smaller 
Boeotian  towns.  Thus  perished  the  city  of  Epaminondas,  the 
victim  of  its  own  rashness  and  of  the  procrastination  of  its  allies. 
Alexander  spared  only  the  temples  and  the  house  of  the  poet  Pindar : 
long  after,  however,  he  repented  of  his  cruelty,  and  attributed  to 
the  anger  of  Bacchus,  the  tutelary  god  of  Thebes,  the  drunken 
frenzy  which  sometimes  disfigured  his  later  years. 

The  Athenians  and  the  other  Greek  states  of  the  Theban  party 
had  done  nothing  more  than  pass  decrees  against  Alexander,  and 
the  king  declared  that  he  should  require  nothing  more  than  the 
punishment  of  the  leaders  of  the  anti-Macedonian  party.  His 
demand  for  the  instant  surrender  of  eight  leading  citizens  of  Athens, 
including  Demosthenes,  was  soon  softened  down  by  the  intercession 
of  Phocion  into  a  consent  that  two  Athenians  only  should  be 
banished.  The  same  was  the  case  with  Elis  and  Arcadia,  who  had 
committed  themselves  in  much  the  same  way  as  Athens ;  a  few 
leaders  were  punished  and  the  states  left  unharmed.  By  the  use 
of  one  severe  example,  followed  by  a  display  of  clemency,  Alex- 
ander brought  the  Greeks  into  the  frame  of  mind  in  which  he 
desired  to  see  them — they  were  now  convinced  that  they  had  to 
deal  with  a  master-mind,  and  would  be  loath  to  recommence  their 
intrigues  while  the  ruins  of  Thebes  lay  before  their  eyes. 


ALEXANDER  487 

335-334   B.C. 

The  autumn  of  335  b.c.  was  now  far  spent;  and  the  king 
announced  that  he  should  not  till  the  next  year  take  up  the  great 
scheme  for  the  invasion  of  Asia  which  his  father  had  begun  to  carry 
out.  The  Macedonian  force  which  Philip  had  sent  across  the 
Hellespont  in  337  b.c.  was  still  holding  on  to  some  of  the  coast 
towns  of  Mysia :  Alexander  now  began  to  reinforce  it,  but  deferred 
the  departure  of  his  main  army  till  the  spring  of  the  oncoming 
year. 

Nothing  could  be  more  inspiring  to  the  enthusiastic  mind  of 
Alexander  than  the  idea  of  an  attack  on  the  realm  of  the  Great 
King.  Such  a  scheme  at  once  brought  him  on  to  the  ground  where 
his  hero-ancestor,  Achilles,  had  fought  and  died.  It  gave  him  the 
opportunity  of  surpassing  the  successful  Asiatic  campaigns  of 
Agesilaus,  who  was  still  reckoned  the  greatest  general  that  Greece 
had  known.  It  also  furnished  him  with  a  plausible  excuse  for 
calling  upon  the  states  of  Greece  for  their  hearty  aid:  was  he  not 
about  to  avenge  on  their  behalf  the  invasion  which  Xerxes  just  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  before  had  launched  against  the  Hellenic 
fatherland?  The  war  was  to  be  at  once  a  crusade  of  Hellenism 
against  barbarism,  a  buccaneering  adventure  into  the  golden  realm 
of  the  fabulously  wealthy  "  Great  King,"  and — what  was  not 
without  an  attraction  for  Alexander — a  plunge  into  the  unknown — • 
for  beyond  the  coast-land  Asia  was  still  untrodden  ground  to  the 
Greeks. 

The  prince  who  sat  on  the  Persian  throne  was  now  Darius  III. 
There  had  been  much  murder  of  late  in  the  palace  of  Susa,  and 
Darius,  who  was  only  the  third  cousin  of  his  predecessor,  had  been 
suddenly  called  from  a  private  station  to  occupy  the  throne,  owing 
to  the  extinction  of  the  elder  branch  of  the  royal  house.  He  had 
now  been  reigning  for  two  years,  and  had  given  no  sign  of  capacity, 
either  for  good  or  evil ;  but,  tried  in  the  balance,  he  was  found  to  be 
entirely  destitute  both  of  military  ability  and  of  moral  courage. 
Though  not  absolutely  a  coward,  he  was  so  wanting  in  decision  and . 
initiative  that  no  one  could  have  been  more  fitted  to  lose  an 
empire. 

In  the  spring  of  334  B.C.  Alexander  marched  to  the  Hellespont 
with  the  veteran  army  which  his  father  had  organized.  Some  30,000 
foot  and  4500  horse  followed  his  banner,  of  whom  about  half  were 
Macedonians;  the  rest  consisted  of  1200  Greeks  and  7000  barbarian 
auxiliaries — Tracians,   Illyrians,   and  other  wild   tribes   from  the 


488  GREECE 

335-334   B.C. 

Balkans.  They  formed  about  two-thirds  of  the  strength  of  the 
Macedonian  monarchy;  the  remaining  third,  12,000  foot  and  1500 
horse,  under  Antipater,  were  left  behind  to  guard  the  capital  and 
overawe  the  unruly  Greeks. 

For  two  years  Persia  and  Macedon  had  already  been  at  war, 
but  Darius  had  made  no  adequate  preparation  to  repel  invasion; 
indeed,  he  hardly  expected  it:  no  Asiatic  could  have  foreseen  that 
a  young  man  of  twenty-two,  whose  name  he  had  but  just  learned, 
was  about  to  revolutionize  the  whole  East.  The  Phoenician  fleet 
was  not  called  up  to  block  the  Hellespont,  nor  were  the  satraps  of 
Asia  Minor  strengthened  with  aid  from  the  inland.  They  had  to 
bear  the  storm  as  best  they  could  on  their  own  resources.  To  meet 
Alexander,  Arsites  of  Phrygia,  Mitrobarzanes  of  Cappadocia,  and 
Spithridates  of  Lydia,  had  collected  twenty  thousand  native  horse, 
and  about  ten  thousand  Greek  mercenary  foot,  to  defend  their 
borders. 

Meanwhile,  Alexander  crossed  the  Hellespont  with  his  army, 
and  landed  near  Troy,  at  the  spot  where  tradition  placed  the  harbor 
of  the  host  of  Agamemnon.  He  honored  the  supposed  tomb  of  his 
ancestor  Achilles  with  solemn  rites ;  hanging  a  garland  on  it,  and 
running,  thrice,  naked  round  the  barrow,  in  accordance  with  an 
ancient  local  custom.  At  Ilium  he  did  solemn  sacrifice  to  Athene, 
and  hung  up  his  arms  in  her  temple,  taking  down  instead  some 
ancient  armor  that  was  said  to  have  been  dedicated  by  the  heroes 
of  the  Trojan  war.  Then,  full  of  memories  of  Homeric  battles,  he 
went  forth  to  meet  the  hosts  of  Asia.  The  satraps  were  waiting 
for  him  in  a  position  they  had  chosen  on  the  river  Granicus,  ten 
miles  inland  from  the  Propontis,  near  the  town  of  Zeleia.  Mentor, 
the  leader  of  the  Greek  mercenaries,  had  besought  the  Persians  to 
retire  before  Alexander  without  a  battle,  wasting  the  country 
around  them  and  declining  to  engage  till  they  should  have  mustered 
greater  strength.  But  the  stupid  satraps  were  bent  on  fighting  at 
a  disadvantage.  Instead  of  choosing  a  plain  where  their  cavalry 
could  act,  they  placed  themselves  on  the  rugged  bank  of  a  fordable 
river,  and  prepared  to  dispute  its  passage.  Their  infantry  was  in 
the  second  line;  their  masses  of  cavalry,  which  were  almost  useless 
for  defending  a  position,  lined  the  steep  slope  at  the  water's 
edge. 

The  eye  of  Alexander  caught  at  once  the  defect  in  the  enemy's 
array :  his  infantry  advanced  to  the  river's  edge  and  began  to  cross 


ALEXANDER  489 

335-334   B.C. 

in  face  of  the  Persian  horse ;  they  were  charged  when  they  reached 
the  further  bank,  but  their  long  sarissas  beat  off  the  cavalry  with 
heavy  loss.  Then  Alexander  himself  plunged  into  the  water  with 
his  horse-guards  and  scrambled  up  the  steep  slope  in  front  of  him. 
Their  assault  was  irresistible:  though  the  Persian  nobles  swarmed 
round  him,  fighting  their  best,  and  dying  manfully  upon  the  lances 
of  the  horse-guards,  they  could  make  no  long  stand.  But  for  a 
moment  the  melee  was  hot ;  one  Persian  noble  lopped  off  the  king's 
white  plume;  another,  the  satrap  Spithridates,  had  forced  himself 
behind  Alexander  and  was  raising  his  saber  to  stab  him  in  the  back, 
when  Cleitus,  a  Macedonian  officer,  cut  off  his  hand.  The  Persian 
leaders  soon  fell;  their  horsemen  fled  in  disorder,  and  then  the 
Macedonians  were  able  to  surround  the  unfortunate  Greek  mer- 
cenary infantry  in  the  rear.  Alexander  gave  them  no  quarter, 
alleging  that  they  were  traitors  in  arms  against  the  Hellenic  con- 
federacy of  which  he  was  general,  and  only  two  thousand  escaped 
death. 

The  whole  loss  of  the  Macedonians  in  the  fight  at  the  GranTcus 
was  only  one  hundred  and  twenty  men :  on  the  Persian  side  about 
two  thousand  horsemen  had  fallen,  and  the  whole  body  of  infantry 
had  been  cut  to  pieces.  But  the  most  important  item  in  their  loss 
was  that  well-nigh  every  Persian  officer  of  rank  had  been  slain; 
two  of  the  three  satraps  had  fallen  in  the  battle ;  the  third,  Arsites, 
escaped  alive,  but  committed  suicide  next  day  rather  than  face  his 
master.  There  was  no  one  left  to  command  in  Asia  Minor,  and  the 
defense  of  the  whole  peninsula  was  completely  disorganized.  Town 
after  town  surrendered  to  Alexander  when  he  proceeded  to  march 
south  from  the  Hellespont — first  Sardis,  then  Ephesus,  then  all  the 
other  cities  of  Ionia.  The  king  needed  to  do  nothing  but  accept 
the  submission  of  their  inhabitants  and  nominate  new  governors. 
In  one  quarter  only  was  there  opposition:  Memnon,  the  captain 
of  the  Greek  mercenaries  of  Darius,  had  escaped  from  the  Granicus 
and  thrown  himself  into  Miletus.  He  maintained  himself  there 
for  some  weeks,  and  had  to  be  besieged  in  due  form  ere  he  would 
evacuate  the  place.  Meanwhile  a  Phoenician  fleet  had  come  up, 
two  months  late:  it  should  have  arrived  in  the  spring  and  blocked 
the  Hellespont.  Aided  by  this  fleet  Memnon  held  first  Miletus  and 
then  Halicarnassus,  and  gave  Alexander  much  trouble.  Hali- 
carnassus  had  to  be  stormed  after  a  desperate  defense — the  first  real 
trouble  that  the  Macedonians  had  met  in  Asia — and  even  when  it 


490  GREECE 

334-333  B.C. 

fell  Memnon  and  his  garrison  escaped  on  shipboard,  to  give  further 
trouble  in  the  Aegean.      (Autumn  of  334  B.C.) 

Alexander  employed  the  last  months  of  334  B.C.  in  completing 
the  subjection  of  western  Asia  Minor,  Leaving  his  main  body  to 
winter  at  Ephesus,  he  marched  with  a  chosen  corps  through  Caria 
and  received  the  homage  of  its  native  rulers :  then  he  pushed  in  the 
depth  of  winter  along  the  Lycian  and  Pamphylian  shore,  meeting 
hardly  any  hindrance  save  from  the  inclemency  of  the  season.  One 
most  hazardous  march  took  him  round  the  sea-swept  path  that 
winds  along  the  cliffs  of  Mount  Climax:  the  road  was  covered,  but 
the  king  refused  to  turn  back,  and  made  his  way  through  water 
that  reached  to  the  waist,  despising  the  waves  that  threatened  to 
sweep  away  his  whole  host.  He  thus  reached  the  cities  of  the 
Pamphylian  coast.  Perga  and  Side  promptly  submitted,  and  the 
tribes  of  the  neighboring  highlands  soon  followed  their  example. 
The  king  then  turned  north,  and,  crossing  the  snow-clad  passes  of 
the  Pisidian  mountain  in  early  March,  came  out  on  to  the  great 
Phrygian  plateau  just  as  spring  began. 

At  Gordium,  the  old  capital  of  Phrygia,  Alexander  was  joined 
by  his  main  army,  which  the  veteran  general  Parmenio  led  up  from 
Ephesus,  It  had  been  largely  recruited  by  drafts  from  Macedon 
and  Greece,  and  was  now  even  stronger  than  when  it  crossed  the 
Hellespont  a  year  before :  the  marvelous  success  of  the  king  had 
made  recruiting  easy,  and  volunteers  were  numerous.  Alexander's 
stay  at  Gordium  is  mainly  notable  for  the  incident  of  the  "  Gordian 
knot."  In  the  town  there  was  preserved  an  ancient  chariot,  said  to 
have  been  constructed  by  Gordius,  the  first  king  of  Phrygia.  Its 
pole  was  fastened  to  its  yoke  by  a  strand  of  cornel  bark,  twisted  in 
a  complex  knot.  Local  tradition  held  that  the  man  who  should 
untie  the  knot  was  destined  to  be  king  of  all  Asia.  Alexander 
heard  the  tale,  gazed  for  a  moment  at  the  puzzle,  and  promptly 
solved  it  by  drawing  his  sword  and  cutting  the  knot  asunder.  The 
bystanders,  both  Phrygian  and  Greek,  raised  a  cry  that  the  proph- 
ecy was  now  fulfilled,  and  were  confirmed  in  their  idea  when  a 
heavy  thunderstorm  followed — denoting,  as  they  supposed,  the 
assent  of  Zeus. 

It  seemed  for  a  short  time  as  if  Alexander  might  be  detained 
in  Asia  Minor  by  the  operations  of  Memnon  and  the  Persian  fleet 
in  the  Aegean.  That  enterprising  chief  conquered  in  the  spring  the 
islands  of  Chios  and  Lesbos,  expelling  their  Macedonian  garrisons. 


ALEXANDER  491 

333  B.C. 

He  then  proposed  to  sail  across  to  Greece  and  raise  rebellion  against 
Alexander,  with  the  help  of  Agis,  King  of  Sparta ;  but  just  at  this 
moment  he  died.  With  his  death  all  energy  seemed  to  abandon  the 
Persian  fleet,  and  Alexander,  freed  from  this  danger  at  the  critical 
moment,  was  free  to  plunge  farther  into  Asia. 

King  Darius  had  done  nothing  all  the  winter,  while  his  restless 
adversary  had  been  conquering  western  Asia  Minor.  But  he  had 
summoned  the  full  muster  of  the  host  of  all  the  satrapies  to  meet  at 
Babylon  in  the  spring  of  333  B.C.  He  was  now  on  his  march  up 
the  Euphrates  with  an  armament  almost  as  large  as  that  of  Xerxes. 
Rumor  gave  him  six  hundred  thousand  men,  and  some  of  the 
troops  were  good  fighting  material,  more  especially  a  body  of  nearly 
thirty  thousand  Greek  mercenaries,  hired  from  every  quarter  where 
hoplites  could  be  found. 

While  Darius  was  coming  westward  Alexander  was  hurrying 
to  meet  him.  A  rapid  march  from  Gordium  across  the  central 
plateau  of  Asia  Minor  brought  him  to  the  foot  of  the  passes  of 
Mount  Taurus.  It  was  expected  that  the  governor  of  Cilicia  would 
have  manned  them  with  all  the  forces  of  his  satrapy;  but  the 
cowardly  wretch — his  name  was  Arsames — fled  at  Alexander's 
approach,  and  abandoned  the  rugged  defile  of  the  Cilician  Gates 
wnthout  a  blow.  The  Macedonian  army  at  once  poured  down  from 
the  hills  into  the  fertile  Cilician  plain  and  seized  Tarsus. 

Here  Alexander  was  detained  by  a  sharp  fit  of  illness.  He  had 
plunged,  at  the  end  of  a  hot  march,  into  the  icy-cold  mountain 
stream  of  the  Cydnus;  a  chill  seized  him  and  fever  followed.  He 
was  treated  by  a  physician  named  Philippus,  but  was  long  in 
rallying.  A  secret  letter  informed  him  that  his  doctor  had  been 
hired  by  Persian  gold  to  poison  him.  But  so  great  was  Alexander's 
confidence  in  Philippus  that  he  drank  off  the  next  potion  he  pre- 
scribed, and  then  handed  him  the  letter  to  read.  After  this  the 
king  rapidly  recovered  his  strength,  and  was  soon  in  the  field 
again. 

Meanwhile  Darius  was  at  hand  with  all  his  hosts,  and  only 
Mount  Amanus,  the  range  which  separates  Syria  from  Cilicia,  lay 
between  the  armies.  Two  main  passes  pierce  the  chain,  the  "  Syrian 
Gates  "  to  the  south,  leading  from  Myriandrus  to  Sochi,  and  the 
"  Amanic  Gates  "  to  the  north,  leading  from  Issus  to  Sochi.  Alex- 
ander was  convinced  that  his  enemy  intended  to  fight  in  the  great 
plain  of  northern  Syria,  where  his  masses  of  cavalry  could  act 


492  GREECE 

333  B.C. 

freely.  It  never  entered  his  head  that  Darius  would  enter  the 
mountains  and  engage  on  ground  so  unfavorable  to  his  unwieldy 
numbers.  Accordingly,  Alexander  marched  down  the  narrow 
coast-plain  between  the  Amanus  and  the  sea,  and  made  for  the 
"  Syrian  Gates "  in  order  to  cross  into  Syria.  But,  meanwhile, 
Darius  also  had  set  out  to  meet  his  enemy,  and  passing  the  moun- 
tains by  the  "  Amanic  Gates,"  came  down  on  Issus  in  Alexander's 
rear,  captured  the  depots  and  sick  of  the  Macedonian  army,  and 
threw  himself  across  their  line  of  communication  with  Asia  Alinor. 

This  mattered  little  to  Alexander;  he  only  rejoiced  that  his 
enemy  had  consented  to  pen  up  his  multitudes  between  the  sea  and 
the  hills,  on  the  narrow  shore  between  Issus  and  Myriandrus. 
Abandoning  the  "  Syrian  Gates,"  the  king  faced  about,  and  retraced 
his  route  back  towards  Issus.  Behind  the  river  Pinarus,  ten  miles 
south  of  Issus,  he  came  upon  the  Persian  host,  ranged  line  behind 
line  with  a  front  of  only  ninety  thousand  men.  The  Greek  merce- 
naries and  the  native  Persians,  both  horse  and  foot,  were  in  the 
fighting  line;  the  troops  of  the  subject  nations  blocked  the  roads 
for  mile  on  mile  to  the  rear,  quite  out  of  the  game.  Alexander's 
army  was  numerous  enough  to  fill  the  space  of  two  miles  between 
the  sea  and  the  hills  without  overcrowding.  Placing  the  phalanx 
in  the  center,  leading  the  right  wing  of  cavalry  himself,  and  giving 
the  left,  on  the  sea-flank,  in  charge  to  the  old  Parmenio,  Alexander 
advanced  to  attack  the  enemy. 

The  battle  of  Issus,  though  more  toughly  contested  than  that 
at  the  Granlcus,  was  not  less  decisive.  The  phalanx  pushed  into 
the  midst  of  the  Persian  line,  and  engaged  in  a  fierce  strife  with  the 
Greek  mercenaries  of  Darius.  Parmenio  by  the  seashore  waged 
an  up-hill  fight  against  the  main  body  of  the  Persian  horse,  and  was 
forced  to  give  ground.  But  Alexander  himself  in  a  series  of  fierce 
charges  broke  through  the  left  wing  of  the  enemy,  and  then  turned 
to  attack  his  center  from  the  flank  and  rear.  When  King  Darius 
saw  the  Macedonian  lancers  pressing  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  lofty 
chariot  wherein  he  sat,  his  presence  of  mind  deserted  him ;  he  leaped 
down  and  mounted  a  horse.  Seeing  the  chariot  empty  the  Persians 
imagined  the  king  slain ;  a  cry  ran  down  the  ranks  that  all  was 
lost,  and  the  fighting  line  broke  up  in  confusion.  The  subject 
nations  in  the  rear  did  not  stop  to  strike  a  blow,  but  promptly  fled 
to  the  hills.  Darius  himself,  almost  the  first  among  the  fugitives, 
abandoned  his  camp,   his   treasures,   and   his  harem,   and   fled   to 


ji 

^ 

c 

-* 

J> 

t* 

g 

««; 

^ 

'-^ 

7 

K- 

^ 

"^ 

U 

o 

>= 

•A 

o 

** 

*  *■ 

3 

? 

■«^' 

w' 

^ 

»> 

S     "3     S 


.  ;:r  -^  ,:r 


^ 


ALEXANDER  493 

333  B.C. 

Thapsacus  on  the  Euphrates.  There  was  a  great  slaughter  of  the 
fugitives,  and  of  the  native  Persians  and  Greek  mercenaries  in  the 
front  line  nearly  half  must  have  fallen.  A  moderate  estimate 
placed  the  loss  in  Darius's  army  at  thirty  thousand  men.  Of  the 
Macedonians  not  more  than  four  hundred  and  fifty  were  left  on  the 
field. 

In  the  Persian  camp  were  found  three  thousand  talents  ($3,- 
500,000),  the  first  large  spoil  of  money  that  had  fallen  into  Alexan- 
der's hands,  great  stores  of  plate  and  jewels,  and — a  capture  of  far 
greater  importance — the  harem  of  Darius,  including  his  mother 
Sisygambis  and  his  queen-consort  Statira.  Alexander  treated  these 
ladies  with  great  courtesy  and  consideration :  not  only  did  their 
forlorn  situation  appeal  to  his  natural  magnanimity,  but  he  might 
also  reflect  that  they  would  be  most  valuable  hostages  in  any  future 
dealings  with  Darius. 

When  he  stood  victorious  at  the  head  of  the  Gulf  of  Issus 
Alexander  had  two  paths  open  to  him.  He  might  strike  eastward 
and  pursue  Darius  to  Babylon,  leaving  Syria  unsubdued  on  his 
flank,  or  he  might  turn  south  and  subdue  Syria  and  Egypt  before 
proceeding  to  attack  the  heart  of  the  Persian  empire.  Alexander 
chose  the  latter  alternative:  the  character  of  Darius  was  now 
known  to  him,  and  he  thought  that  he  might  safely  neglect  him  for 
many  months  after  the  crushing  defeat  he  had  just  undergone. 
His  conjecture  was  correct ;  within  a  short  time  Darius  was  humbly 
asking  for  peace,  ofifering  ten  thousand  talents  as  a  ransom  for  his 
family,  and  the  hand  of  his  daughter  Barsine,  with  all  the  provinces 
west  of  Euphrates  as  her  dower.  Alexander  told  his  officers  of  the 
Persian's  proposition.  "  I  should  accept,  were  I  Alexander," 
exclaimed  the  veteran  Parmenio.  "  And  so  should  I,  if  I  were 
Parmenio,"  answered  the  king.  The  Macedonian  generals  were 
already  dazzled  with  the  vastness  of  their  conquests,  but  their 
young  master  looked  upon  what  he  had  obtained  as  a  mere  earnest 
of  greater  things  to  come.  He  sent  away  the  Persian  ambassadors, 
and  prepared  to  go  on  with  the  war. 

It  was  in  front  of  Tyre  that  the  envoys  had  found  Alexander. 
All  northern  Syria  had  submitted  to  him  without  a  blow,  and  of  the 
Phoenician  cities,  Sidon,  Byblus,  and  Aradus  had  opened  their 
gates.  But  Tyre,  jealous  of  the  semi-independence  it  enjoyed 
under  the  Persian  rule,  had  proffered  homage,  but  refused  to  admit 
a  Macedonian  garrison  within  its  walls.     The  king  answered  that 


494  GREECE 

333-332  B.C. 

he  must  enter  the  city,  as  he  intended  to  sacrifice  to  Melcarth — 
whom  the  Greeks  identified  with  their  own  Heracles — in  his 
ancient  temple  on  the  Tyrian  island.  To  this  the  Tyrians  replied 
that  no  foreigner  could  come  within  the  walls,  but  that  a  shrine 
of  Melcarth,  yet  more  ancient  and  venerable  than  their  own,  could 
be  found  in  the  ruins  of  old  Tyre  on  the  mainland.  Alexander 
was  in  no  mood  to  brook  such  a  reply,  and  announced  that  he  would 
enter  by  force  of  arms. 

Tyre  was  a  strong  place — renowned  for  the  long  sieges  it  had 
undergone — one  Assyrian  king  had  blockaded  it  in  vain  for  more 
than  twenty  years.  It  lay  on  an  island  seven  hundred  yards  out 
in  the  sea,  and  was  girt  by  walls  coming  down  to  the  water's  edge 
and  rising  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  above  the  waves.  The  Tyrians 
possessed  a  well-equipped  fleet  of  a  hundred  ships,  which  had  just 
returned  from  the  Aegean,  for  the  nev/s  of  Issus  had  caused  the 
Persian  armament  in  the  western  waters  to  break  up. 

Alexander  had  as  yet  no  fleet  with  him,  and  strove  to  take  Tyre 
by  running  a  mole  out  from  the  mainland  across  the  shallow  strait 
which  protected  the  island  city.  At  first  the  work  was  easy,  but 
presently  the  mole  reached  deeper  water,  and  began  also  to  come 
within  range  of  the  military  engines  planted  on  the  walls.  The 
workmen  were  swept  off  in  such  numbers  that  Alexander  had  to 
construct  wooden  towers  to  protect  the  head  of  the  mole ;  but  when 
these  were  constructed  the  Tyrians  set  them  ablaze  by  means  of 
a  fire-ship,  and  then  pushed  out  in  boats,  and  destroj^ed  the  greater 
part  of  the  causeway.  Convinced  that  he  must  command  the  sea 
if  he  wished  to  conquer  Tyre,  Alexander  compelled  the  Sidonians 
and  Cypriots  to  send  him  their  fleets,  and  presently  sent  two  hun- 
dred and  ten  vessels  to  drive  the  Tyrians  within  their  harbor. 
After  this  the  work  was  simplified ;  the  mole  was  renewed  on  a 
larger  scale,  and  driven  forward  to  the  very  foot  of  the  walls.  The 
Tyrians  fought  with  the  frantic  courage  of  which  Semitic  races 
have  often  shown  themselves  capable, — as  bravely  as  the  Cartha- 
ginians withstood  Scipio,  or  the  Jews  the  Romans  of  Titus.  But 
the  end  was  inevitable :  a  breach  was  made  and  the  city  was 
stormed  a*fter  a  siege  of  less  than  seven  months.  The  Mace- 
donians lost  four  hundred  men,  but  eight  thousand  Tyrians  were 
cut  down  in  the  streets.  Two  thousand  prisoners  were  hanged  by 
the  ruthless  conqueror,  and  the  rest  of  the  population  sold  into 
slavery.      (July  ?  332  b.c.) 


ALEXANDER  495 

332-331    B.C. 

When  Tyre  fell,  all  the  lands  to  its  south  were  struck  with 
terror.  The  Jews  in  Palestine  did  homage  to  the  king,  and  with  them 
all  the  cities  of  the  Philistines,  save  Gaza  alone,  the  southern  fortress 
which  blocked  the  road  to  Egypt.  A  faithful  governor  named 
Batis  held  this  town  for  Darius :  he  resisted  for  three  months  and 
sorely  angered  Alexander.  When  the  place  fell  the  king  determined 
to  imitate  his  ancestor  Achilles  in  the  least  praiseworthy  of  his 
actions :  he  had  Batis  bound  to  the  tail  of  his  chariot  and  dragged 
him  along  till  he  died,  because  Achilles  had  dealt  in  the  same  way 
with  the  corpse  of  Hector.  Cruelty  from  this  moment  seems  to 
have  grown  upon  Alexander  more  and  more. 

Egypt  fell  without  a  blow :  its  inhabitants  regarded  the  Mace- 
donians as  deliverers  from  the  Persian  yoke,  against  which  they 
had  so  long  striven,  and  welcomed  them  as  friends.  Alexander 
made  a  triumphal  entry  into  Memphis,  and  then  sailed  down  the 
Nile  to  its  western  mouth,  where,  struck  with  the  capacities  of  the 
spot,  he  drew  out  a  plan  for  the  foundation  of  a  great  maritime 
city,  and  christened  it  by  his  own  name.  Thus  came  into  being 
the  seaport  of  Alexandria,  by  far  most  enduring  of  all  the  monu- 
ments which  Alexander  reared  for  himself. 

While  staying  at  Alexandria,  the  king  resolved  to  visit  the 
famous  oracle  of  Zeus  Ammon  in  the  Libyan  desert.  With  a  picked 
corps  of  troops  he  marched  for  five  days  across  the  sands,  and 
came  in  safety  to  the  palm  groves  of  the  fertile  oasis  which  shel- 
tered the  temple  of  the  god.  The  oracle  hailed  him  as  the  son  of 
Zeus,  and  bade  him  go  forth  and  conquer  all  the  world,  for  none 
should  be  able  to  withstand  him  till  the  day  when  he  should  be 
taken  up  to  the  gods.  His  companions  were  bidden  to  salute  him 
as  more  than  mortal,  and  to  offer  him  sacrifice.  This  hyperbolical 
flattery  seems  to  have  been  the  first  thing  which  turned  the  head  of 
Alexander :  it  was  noted  that  he  took  the  greeting  of  the  oracle 
in  all  seriousness,  and  was  in  future  much  pleased  when  anyone 
saluted  him  as  the  son  of  Ammon. 

In  the  spring  of  331  B.C.  Alexander  retraced  his  steps  from 
Egypt  through  Palestine  and  Syria  back  to  the  Euphrates.  He 
crossed  the  great  river  at  Thapsacus,  and  then,  pushing  yet  farther 
east,  passed  the  Tigris  also.  This  he  did  in  order  to  avoid  the 
Mesopotamian  desert,  and  to  be  able  to  march  on  Babylon  by  a 
route  where  provisions  should  never  fail. 

Darius  had  been  granted  nearly  two  years  to  assemble  a  new 


496  GREECE 

331    B.C. 

army,  and  had  now  gathered  a  force  even  greater  than  that  which 
fought  at  Issus.  He  was  determined  this  time  to  fight  on  the  level 
plains,  where  his  hordes  would  not  be  cramped  for  want  of  space 
to  deploy,  and  awaited  Alexander  in  the  flat  sandy  country  in  front 
of  the  town  of  Arbela,  at  a  spot  known  as  Gaugamela  (the  house 
of  the  camel).  There  the  whole  force  of  the  East  was  found  drawn 
out  in  battle  array — the  king  in  the  midst  in  his  war-chariot,  sur- 
rounded by  his  body-guard,  and  with  the  remnant  of  his  Greek 
mercenaries  on  either  side :  to  the  north  and  south  of  him  stretched 
long  lines  of  Median,  Bactrian,  Persian,  and  Indian  cavalry,  while 
behind  him  were  drawn  up  the  infantry  of  the  eastern  satrapies,  in 
numbers  numberless.  War-chariots  and  elephants  were  stationed 
at  intervals  in  front  of  the  army,  and  it  was  hoped  that  their  onset 
might  break  up  the  close  array  which  was  the  strength  of  the 
Macedonians. 

To  meet  this  great  host  Alexander  had  only  forty  thousand 
foot  and  seven  thousand  cavalry.  It  was  evident  that  he  must  be 
outflanked  to  right  and  left  by  the  enormous  numbers  opposed  to 
him.  Accordingly  he  advanced  in  an  order  which  somewhat  re- 
sembled a  hollow  square.  The  phalanx  made  the  front  line,  flanked 
on  the  right  by  Alexander  and  his  chosen  Macedonian  horse,  on 
the  left  by  Parmenio  and  the  cavalry  of  the  allied  Greeks.  The 
sides  of  the  square  were  formed  by  bodies  of  Greek,  Thracian,  and 
Illyrian  infantry  and  horse :  their  orders  were  to  beat  off  all  flank 
attacks,  and  to  see  that  the  king  was  not  assailed  from  the  rear.  The 
hinder  side  of  the  square  was  formed  by  a  thin  line  of  Thracian 
infantry. 

In  this  array  the  Macedonians  plunged  into  the  midst  of  the 
Persian  host,  aiming  the  chief  point  of  their  impact  at  the  king 
himself.  The  elephants  and  chariots  gave  no  trouble,  but  when 
the  enemy's  cavalry  closed  in  on  either  flank,  there  was  very  sharp 
fighting  all  over  the  field.  Parmenio  was  encompassed  and  almost 
beaten  by  the  Persian  right  wing.  One  great  body  of  Parthian 
and  Indian  horse  burst  through  between  two  brig^ades  of  the  pha- 
lanx, and  would  have  done  much  harm  had  it  not  fallen  to  plunder- 
ing the  Greek  camp.  But  in  the  center  Alexander  himself  won 
his  way  forward  with  the  same  irresistible  impetus  that  he  had 
displayed  at  Granlcus  and  Issus.  With  his  body-guard  and  the 
right  brigades  of  the  phalanx  he  pierced  into  the  Persian  ranks 
till  he  drew  near  to  the  chariot  of  Darius.    Once  more  the  imbecile 


ALEXANDER  497 

331    B.C. 

Persian  concluded  that  it  was  better  to  survive  and  fight  another 
day.  Though  his  men  were  still  doing  their  best,  he  left  his  chariot, 
mounted  his  charger,  and  fled  away.  His  host  fled  after  him,  and 
Alexander  was  once  more  the  victor.  He  had  conquered  a  host 
of  a  million  men,  and  slain  forty  thousand  of  them,  with  no  greater 
loss  than  five  hundred  killed  and  four  or  five  thousand  wounded ! 

When  Alexander  won  his  third  and  crowning  victory  over 
the  Great  King,  the  spell  which  had  held  the  Persian  empire  to- 
gether, for  two  hundred  years  seemed  suddenly  dissolved.  The 
rumor  ran  far  and  wide  over  all  the  eastern  satrapies  that  the 
house  of  the  Achaemenidae  was  doomed,  and  everywhere  the  native 
princes  declared  themselves  independent,  and  the  satraps  strove 
to  turn  their  provinces  into  petty  kingdoms.  It  was  no  more  with 
the  Persian  empire  that  Alexander  had  to  deal ;  such  an  entity  no 
longer  existed.  He  had  now  to  deal  with  a  bewildering  chaos  of 
tribes  and  cities,  defending,  or  refusing  to  defend,  the  newly  ac- 
quired freedom.  Darius  fled  to  Ecbatana  in  Media,  but  he  could 
not  collect  a  new  army:  only  a  few  thousantl  personal  retainers  of 
his  own  and  of  the  satraps  who  still  clung  to  him  mustered  around 
his  person.  Moreover  his  life  and  his  crown  were  alike  in  danger : 
his  cousin  Bessus,  satrap  of  Bactria,  had  determined  to  dethrone 
him — as  he  richly  deserved — and  to  see  whether  a  new  sovereign 
could  not  save  the  heritage  of  the  Achaemenidae. 

Meanwhile,  Alexander  marched  on  Babylon,  where  the  Chal- 
daeans  opened  the  gates  of  the  city,  and  received  him  with  gar- 
lands, sacrifices,  and  hymns  of  honor.  Babylon  had  never  forgiven 
the  two  sacks  it  had  undergone  at  the  hands  of  the  Persians  in  the 
sixth  century,  and  looked  upon  Alexander  as  a  liberator.  It  might 
have  been  expected  that  Susa,  the  home  of  Cyrus  and  the  chosen 
abode  of  his  successors,  would  have  shown  a  different  spirit.  But 
the  spell  of  Arbela  was  on  the  Susians;  they  yielded  without  re- 
sistance, and  placed  in  Alexander's  hands  the  immense  royal  hoard 
stored  in  the  palace  of  Darius — a  sum  amounting  to  no  less  than 
fifty  thousand  talents,  or  $57,500,000,  the  savings  of  nine  genera- 
tions of  the  house  of  Achaemenes. 

Alexander  now  halted  for  a  short  time  to  reorganize  the  em- 
pire he  had  won,  for  no  one  now  doubted  that  he  was  the  "  Great 
King,"  and  Darius  a  luckless  pretender  to  a  crown  that  was  no 
longer  his  own.  The  principle  which  the  conqueror  adopted  was 
to  confirm  in  their  civil  authority  all  the  satraps  who '  submitted 


498  GREECE 

331-330   B.C. 

to  him,  but  to  join  with  the  native  ruler  a  Greek  officer,  who  took 
over  miHtary  charge  of  the  district.  Thus  at  Babylon  and  Susa 
the  satraps,  Mazaeus  and  Abulites,  were  left  in  power,  but  Avere 
watched  by  the  two  generals  Apollodorus  and  Archelaus.  The 
Macedonians  did  not  wholly  approve  of  this  arrangement;  they 
thought  that  all  places  of  emolument  should  be  reserved  for  them- 
selves, and  grudged  to  see  their  ruler  taking  upon  him  the  pomp 
of  the  Great  King,  and  acknowledging  Asiatics  as  faithful  and 
deserving  subjects. 

Persia  proper  yet  remained  to  be  conquered :  it  was  defended, 
not  by  the  wretched  Darius,  who  was  hiding  at  Ecbatana,  but  by 
Ariobarzanes,  the  last  hero  that  the  Persian  realm  produced.  Fight- 
ing for  his  own  hand  rather  than  for  any  master,  Ariobarzanes 
summoned  the  last  levy  of  the  old  royal  race  into  the  field.  The 
remnants  of  the  native  Persian  host  manned  the  passes  that  lead 
from  Susa  to  Persepolis,  and  for  five  days  held  Alexander  in  check 
at  a  defile  called  the  "  Susian  Gates."  But  this  Persian  Ther- 
mopylae ended  as  disastrously  as  its  Hellenic  prototype.  Alexander 
found  a  circuitous  track  which  turned  the  pass,  and  came  out  un- 
expectedly in  the  defenders'  rear.  The  Persian  host  was  cut  to 
pieces  after  a  brave  defense:  only  Ariobarzanes  himself  forced  his 
way  through  with  a  few  companions  and  strove  to  defend  the  gates 
of  Persepolis.  There  he  died  as  the  last  leader  of  a  lost  cause 
should  die,  overborne  by  numbers  and  fighting  to  the  last.  If 
Darius  had  been  a  man,  he,  and  not  the  satrap,  should  have  had 
this  glorious  end.     (February?  330  B.C.). 

Alexander  deliberately  gave  up  Persepolis  to  fire  and  sword, 
not  because  it  had  resisted,  but  for  cold-blooded  reasons  of  state 
policy.  Nothing,  he  deliberately  wrote  home,  could  show  so  well 
that  the  Persian  domination  was  over  as  the  sack  of  the  Persian 
capital  and  the  massacre  of  its  inhabitants.  Probably  in  his  heart 
Alexander  rejoiced  that,  unlike  his  model  Achilles,  he  had  sur- 
vived to  gloat  over  the  sack  of  his  own  Troy.  To  the  Greek  world 
he  vouchsafed  to  represent  the  atrocity  as  the  long-delayed  retribu- 
tion for  the  destruction  of  Athens  by  Xerxes  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years  before.  So  Persepolis  became  even  as  Nineveh,  and  the 
Persian  empire  disappeared  as  completely  as  the  Assyrian.  An  even 
greater  treasure  than  had  been  captured  at  Susa,  no  less  than  one 
hundred  and  twenty  thousand  talents,  was  borne  off  in  triumph 
from  the  ruined  city. 


ALEXANDER  499 

330-329   B.C. 

King  Darius  had  survived  his  kingdom,  but  it  was  now  the 
keenest  desire  of  Alexander  to  see  his  rival  at  his  feet  begging  for 
mercy.  After  the  sack  of  Persepolis  he  started  northward  to  seek 
Darius  at  Ecbatana :  the  Persian  fled  at  his  approach,  and  sought 
to  hide  himself  in  the  lands  beyond  the  Oxus,  Disgusted  at  his 
cowardice,  his  few  surviving  followers  cast  him  into  chains,  and 
resolved  to  proclaim  his  ambitious  cousin,  Bessus,  King  of  the 
East.  But  Alexander  followed  hard  on  their  heels,  overtook  them 
and  almost  captured  the  dethroned  king.  Bessus,  however,  seeing 
him  at  hand,  stabbed  his  captive  and  fled.  Alexander  came  up 
just  in  time  to  see  his  rival  expire,  and  was  careful  to  deal  with 
him  as  Achilles  had  with  Hector,  surrendering  his  body  for  hon- 
orable burial  to  his  aged  parent.  Queen  Sisygambis. 

Alexander  was  destined  to  survive  his  rival  for  just  seven 
years,  a  period  spent,  save  its  last  fifteen  months,  in  one  long  series 
of  campaigns  among  the  hills  and  plains  of  Tartary,  Afghanistan, 
and  the  Punjab.  The  man  could  never  rest  while  there  were  lands 
to  conquer :  we  cannot  speculate  how  far  to  the  east  he  might  not 
have  penetrated  had  not  his  own  army  at  last  mutinied  and  refused 
to  proceed  any  farther.  The  first  four  years  were  spent  in  reducing 
to  submission  the  eastern  provinces  of  the  Persian  empire.  Bessus 
had  to  be  dealt  with  first:  he  had  now  assumed  the  crown,  taken 
the  royal  name  of  Artaxerxes,  and  established  himself  as  king  in 
Bactria.  It  took  Alexander  just  a  year  to  destroy  the  usurper  and 
conquer  his  kingdom,  which  extended  from  Artacoana  (Herat)  to 
Maracanda  (Samarcand).  In  May,  329  B.C.,  the  murderer  of  Darius 
was  surrendered  to  Alexander  by  his  own  dispirited  adherents. 
The  king  placed  a  wooden  collar  on  his  neck,  flogged  him  in  public 
at  Bactra  (Balkh),  his  late  capital,  and  then  executed  him.  Bessus 
had  not  been  subdued  without  some  hard  fighting  and  yet  harder 
marching;  one  winter  march  across  the  snow-clad  Paropamisus 
range,  which  divides  Bactria  from  Aria,  was  long  remembered 
for  its  terrors,  and  has  been  compared  not  unaptly  to  Hannibal's 
famous  passage  of  the  Alps. 

Ere  yet  Bessus  had  been  slain,  Alexander  had  wrought  a  deed 
more  cruel  and  unjustifiable  than  any  he  had  yet  committed.  Among 
his  chief  generals  was  Philotas,  son  of  the  veteran  Parmenio  who 
had  served  so  well  at  Issus  and  Arbela.  This  officer  was  a  man 
of  a  very  free  and  outspoken  disposition:  he  had  ventured  many 
times  to  carp  at  Alexander's  growing  vanity  and  recklessness,  and 


500  GREECE 

329-328   B.C. 

had  given  great  offense  by  saying  that  but  for  his  father  and  him- 
self Asia  would  not  have  been  conquered.  Alexander  suddenly 
accused  him  of  having  been  privy  to  a  conspiracy  against  his  life, 
and  put  him  to  the  torture.  Placed  on  the  rack  Phildtas  broke  down 
and  confessed  that  he  and  his  father  Parmenio  had  indeed  been 
plotting  against  the  king.  He  was  then  tried  and  executed,  while 
a  messenger  was  sent  off  to  Ecbatana  to  slay  the  aged  Parmenio, 
who  had  been  left  behind  as  governor  of  Media.  The  old  man 
was  stabbed  in  the  back  while  reading  a  dispatch  handed  to  him 
by  the  messenger.  It  is  certain  that  he  had  never  plotted  against 
his  master,  and  probable  that  his  son  was  equally  innocent.  Alex- 
ander seems  to  have  slain  the  son  from  offended  vanity,  and  then  to 
have  murdered  the  father  lest  he  might  resent  his  son's  cruel  end. 

The  conquest  of  Bactria  had  taken  place  in  329  b.c.  :  in  the 
following  year  Alexander  subdued  Sogdiana,  the  last  Persian  sa- 
trapy to  the  northeast,  and  carried  his  arms  beyond  the  old  Persian 
border  into  the  land  of  the  nomad  Scythians.  Having  forced  their 
king  to  do  homage,  he  built  the  new  city  of  Alexandroeschata 
("Alexander's  farthest")  to  cover  the  frontier,  and  turned  south. 
His  next  expedition  was  to  be  directed  against  India. 

Ever  since  his  visit  to  the  oracle  of  Ammon,  Alexander's  pride 
and  vanity  had  been  increasing.  Of  late  he  had  taken  to  assuming 
divine  honors  as  his  right,  dressed  himself,  to  the  deep  disgust  of 
his  comrades,  in  the  purple  robe  and  tiara  of  an  Eastern  king,  and 
surrounded  his  person  with  Oriental  courtiers.  He  married,  too, 
as  his  chief  wife — for  he  had  started  a  harem — not  a  Greek,  but  the 
beautiful  daughter  of  a  Bactrian  nobleman :  the  heir  to  his  throne, 
men  murmured,  would  be  a  half-bred  Asiatic.  At  the  same  time 
he  began  to  levy  Oriental  troops  in  large  numbers,  and  not  only 
formed  auxiliary  regiments  of  them,  but  drafted  them  into  the 
ranks  of  the  phalanx  and  the  horse-guard.  This  drove  the  Mace- 
donian veterans  to  madness.  One  strange  scene  marks  the  char- 
acter of  this  discontent.  The  king  and  his  generals  drank  deep  one 
night,  celebrating  the  festival  of  the  Dioscuri.  Flatterers,  made 
fluent  by  the  wine-cup,  began  to  beslaver  the  king  with  the  fulsome 
praises  that  he  loved.  At  last  Cleitus,  commander  of  the  horse- 
guard,  could  stand  it  no  longer;  he  told  Alexander  to  his  face  that 
he  owed  his  victories  to  the  army  that  his  father  Philip  had  created, 
and  to  the  generals  he  had  trained,  that  Parmenio  and  Philotas, 
whom  he  had  slain,  had  enabled  him  to  conquer  Asia,  and  that  he 


ALEXAXDER   THE   GREAT.    AS    HELIOS 

(norn    356    B.  c.     Died    3J3    b.  c.  ) 

Marble  bust  in  the  Capitoline  Museum,  Rome 


ALEXANDER  501 

328-326  B.C. 

would  not  be  alive  that  day  if  his  own  arm  had  not  saved  him  from 
the  saber  of  Spithridates  at  the  Granicus.  The  king  and  Cleitus 
were  both  flushed  with  drink,  and  the  wrangle  ended  in  a  tragedy. 
Alexander  sprang  from  his  seat  and  seized  a  sword;  his  friends 
dragged  him  back  and  hurried  Cleitus  from  the  room.  But  the 
angry  general  rushed  back  again  with  a  fresh  taunt  in  his  mouth, 
and  Alexander,  seizing  a  pike,  struck  him  dead.  The  king's  trans- 
port of  murderous  frenzy  was  followed  by  a  violent  revulsion  of 
feeling:  he  flung  himself  in  tears  on  his  couch,  and  refused  to  eat 
for  three  days — but  he  did  not  give  up  his  Oriental  habits  or  his 
drinking  bouts. 

Alexander's  Indian  expedition  added  the  fertile  province  of 
the  Punjab  to  his  dominions.  It  was  won  by  force  of  arms  from 
several  chiefs,  of  whom  the  most  noteworthy  was  Porus,  the  brave 
king  of  the  land  to  the  east  of  the  Hydaspes  (Jhelum).  Confiding 
in  his  fifty  thousand  foot,  his  three  hundred  chariots,  and  his  hun- 
dred and  thirty  war-elephants,  the  Indian  king  advanced  to  defend 
the  line  of  the  Hydaspes  against  the  Macedonians.  He  was  con- 
quered, but  his  defeat  cost  a  thousand  men  to  Alexander,  a  greater 
loss  than  he  had  suffered  when  fighting  the  myriads  of  Darius  at 
Issus  and  Arbela.  Porus  was  wounded  and  taken  prisoner,  but 
Alexander,  in  whom  generous  instincts  were  still  strong,  not  only 
pardoned  him,  but  gave  him  back  his  kingdom  with  a  new  province 
added  to  it  in  327  B.C. 

There  were  other  realms  to  conquer  beyond  the  eastern  bounds 
of  the  dominions  of  Porus.  Accordingly  we  find  Alexander  urging 
on  his  weary  battalions  towards  the  unknown  lands  of  the  sun- 
rising,  of  which  no  Greek  had  hitherto  so  much  as  heard  the  names. 
The  Indian  princes  in  the  valley  of  the  Ganges  would  soon  have  felt 
the  weight  of  his  arm,  if  an  unexpected  obstacle  had  not  intervened. 
On  the  banks  of  the  Hyphasis,  easternmost  of  the  five  rivers  of 
the  Punjab,  the  Macedonians  broke  out  at  last  into  open  mutiny. 
For  seven  years  the  king  had  been  dragging  them  farther  and 
farther  from  their  homes,  and  now  they  would  go  not  one  step 
more,  despite  his  threats  and  promises.  Unlike  their  master,  they 
did  not  thirst  for  more  worlds  to  conquer,  but  yearned  to  rest  and 
enjoy  what  they  had  already  won.  Their  resolve  was  inflexible,  and 
Alexander  had  to  turn  back  in  326  B.C.,  cloaking  his  disgust  with  a 
seasonable  announcement  that  the  omens  for  farther  advance  had 
become  unfavorable. 


502  GREECE 

326-325  B.C. 

The  king  was  far  too  restless  and  adventurous  to  return  by  the 
way  he  had  come.  He  resolved  to  reach  Babylon  by  a  new  route, 
following  the  Indus  to  its  mouth,  and  then  striking  westward 
through  Gedrosia  (Beluchistan).  He  prepared  a  fleet  on  the  Indus 
and  then  made  his  army  escort  it  down  the  river.  On  their  way 
fleet  and  army  co-operated  in  subduing  the  independent  tribes  of  the 
lower  Punjab  and  Scinde.  In  storming  the  citadel  of  the  Malli 
(Mooltan)  the  king  ran  a  greater  personal  risk  than  he  had  ever 
before  incurred.  Leading  the  forlorn  hope  of  the  stormers,  as  was 
often  his  wont,  he  had  reached  the  top  of  the  wall  with  only  three 
companions,  when  the  ladder  broke  behind  him.  He  leaped  down 
among  the  enemy,  and  was  received  with  a  hail  of  arrows  at  short 
range :  one  pierced  his  corselet  and  penetrated  into  the  region  of 
the  lungs;  another  slew  one  of  his  three  followers.  The  two  sur- 
vivors, Peucestes  and  Leonnatus,  fought  desperately  over  his  body 
against  a  crowd  of  Indians,  till  the  stormers  reared  new  ladders 
and  burst  in  to  rescue  their  unconscious  leader,  and  massacre  the 
whole  garrison.  The  king's  life  was  at  first  despaired  of,  but  his 
wonderful  constitution  enabled  him  to  recover,  and  in  a  few  weeks 
he  was  on  foot  again.     (November?  326  b.c.) 

Alexander  reached  the  mouth  of  the  Indus  after  subduing  all 
the  princes  of  Scinde.  He  built  a  town,  which  he  named  Alexandria, 
at  a  well-chosen  spot  in  the  Delta,  and  destined  it  to  be  a  great 
military  and  commercial  port  to  command  the  Indian  Ocean.  From 
thence  he  dispatched  his  fleet  under  his  admiral  Nearchus  to  ex- 
plore the  Erythraean  Sea  and  the  Persian  Gulf,  as  far  as  the  mouths 
of  the  Euphrates,  for  he  was  filled  with  ideas  of  opening  up  a  sea 
route  between  India  and  Babylon.  He  himself  determined  to  make 
a  similar  tour  of  exploration,  but  on  land.  He  took  a  chosen  body 
of  troops,  and  endeavored  to  pick  out  a  road  between  the  mountains 
of  Gedrosia  and  the  sea.  The  main  body  of  his  army  marched 
under  Craterus  by  the  ordinary  road  farther  inland,  which  leads 
from  India  to  Persia,  by  Arachosia  (Candahar)  and  Drangiana 
(Seistan). 

Some  of  Alexander's  luck  seems  to  have  deserted  him  when 
once  he  turned  back  and  set  his  face  homewards.  x\t  the  outset  of 
his  return  journey  he  had  received  the  only  serious  wound  he  ever 
knew,  and  now,  in  the  midst  of  it,  he  made  a  march  which  was  one 
continued  disaster.  He  lost  himself  in  the  unexplored  deserts  of 
Beluchistan,  and  marched  for  sixty  days  over  sterile  valleys  and 


ALEXANDER  503 

326-325   B.C. 

Still  more  sterile  hills  where  neither  food  nor  water  were  to  be  had. 
We  hear  of  marches  of  forty  miles  between  well  and  well,  and  of 
whole  companies  left  stricken  down  by  sunstroke  at  the  roadside. 
All  the  baggage  animals  died,  the  sick  and  wounded  were  abandoned 
for  want  of  transport,  and  the  stragglers,  all  of  whom  perished, 
were  numbered  by  the  thousand.  Before  Alexander  struggled 
through  to  Carmania,  the  border-province  of  Persia,  he  is  said  to 
have  lost  three-fourths  of  the  corps  which  had  marched  with  him. 
This  was  almost  the  first  warning  that  he  had  ever  received  of  the 
dangers  of  reckless  exploration :  it  was  hopeless  to  expect  to  feed 
an  army  in  a  desert  where  even  a  small  caravan  could  only  have 
passed  with  difficulty. 

When  once  the  Gedrosian  desert  had  been  crossed,  the  march 
to  Persepolis  and  Susa  presented  no  difficulties,  and  by  the  spring 
of  325  B.C.  the  king  was  once  more  in  the  heart  of  his  empire.  His 
advent  was  followed  by  a  strict  investigation  of  the  conduct  of  the 
native  satraps  and  Greek  generals  who  had  been  governing  Asia  in 
his  absence.  Many  of  both  classes  were  dismissed  for  peculation 
and  cruelty,  and  several,  both  Greeks  and  Asiatics,  were  actually 
put  to  death  for  their  misconduct. 

Alexander  survived  only  two  years  to  enjoy  the  fruition  of  the 
empire  he  had  created.  But  he  lived  long  enough  to  give  an  earnest 
of  what  his  intentions  had  been.  He  never  desired  to  return  to 
Pella,  to  dwell  as  a  patriarchal  king  among  the  free-spoken  Mace- 
donians. It  was  his  ambition  to  build  up  a  new  Graeco-Asiatic 
state,  wherein  the  barbarians  would  have  their  share  as  well  as  the 
Hellenes.  He  set  himself  to  be  the  civilizer  and  protector  of  his 
Oriental  subjects,  and  framed  his  whole  demeanor  so  as  to  appeal 
to  their  imagination  and  sympathy.  Nor  did  he  fail :  in  Persian 
legends  of  a  later  age  the  "  two-horned  Iskender,"  as  he  was  called, 
(because  he  loved  to  be  represented  wearing  the  horns  of  his 
"father"  Zeus  Ammon),  became  a  native  hero,  and  was  claimed 
as  one  of  the  glories  of  Persia !  One  of  the  chief  schemes  which 
Alexander  framed  for  teaching  Greek  and  Asiatic  to  dwell  peace- 
ably together  was  the  encouragement  of  mixed  marriages.  He  gave 
Persian  princesses  with  great  dowries  to  his  chief  officers,  and 
bestowed  a  handsome  gift  on  each  one  of  ten  thousand  soldiers 
who  had  taken  Asiatic  wives.  He  himself  had  already  wedded  the 
Bactrian  Roxana,  and  now  added  to  his  harem  Statira,  the  eldest 
daughter  of  Darius  HI.,  and   Parysatis,  the  daughter  of  Ochus, 


504.  GREECE 

326-325   B.C. 

Darius's  predecessor  on  the  throne.  Another  method  which  he  de- 
vised for  welding  Greek  and  Oriental  was  to  found  new  cities  all 
over  his  empire,  in  which  a  nucleus  of  disbanded  Greek  soldiery 
and  adventurous  Greek  merchants  were  encouraged  to  settle  far 
afield,  and  mix  with  the  native  inhabitants.  Some  twenty  of  such 
towns,  mostly  called  Alexandria,  rose  all  over  the  eastern  provinces, 
and  many  of  them  have  survived  as  great  centers  to  our  own  day, 
such  as  the  Egyptian  Alexandria,  Candahar  (Alexandria  Aracho- 
tiae),  and  Herat  (Alexandria  Areion).  The  results  of  Alexander's 
work  in  this  scheme  were  rapid  and  striking:  a  half-Hellenic  race 
was  developed  all  through  his  wide  dominions,  and  for  a  century 
it  looked  as  if  Hellenistic  civilization  was  destined  to  dominate 
the  whole  East.  But  this  was  not  to  be;  the  Greeks  were  not 
numerous  enough  to  raise  the  permanent  level  of  Oriental  civiliza- 
tion, or  to  incorporate  the  Asiatics  with  themselves.  Asia  Minor 
and  Syria  only  were  permanently  Hellenized:  everywhere  else  the 
native  element  slowly  worked  out  the  Greek  intermixture,  and  fell 
back  into  its  old  ways.  But  the  strength  of  the  work  of  Alexander, 
even  in  the  farthest  East,  may  be  gauged  by  the  fact  that  Greek 
kings  survived  in  India  down  to  25  b.c,  and  that  among  the 
Parthians  Greek  was  still  the  official  language  in  the  second  century 
after  Christ. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  soldiers  of  Alexander  appre- 
ciated his  schemes,  or  were  pleased  to  see  the  Orientals  treated  as 
their  equals.  Their  discontent  found  vent  in  a  great  mutiny  at 
Opis,  near  Babylon,  in  the  summer  of  324  b.c.  When,  after  raising 
many  new  regiments  of  Asiatics,  the  king  proposed  to  send  home 
the  bulk  of  his  veterans  to  Greece,  loaded  with  gifts  and  pensions, 
the  soldiery  took  his  conduct  as  a  sign  that  he  wished  in  future  to 
do  without  Hellenic  troops,  and  rule  his  Greek  subjects  by  means 
of  an  Oriental  army.  The  mutineers  sarcastically  bade  him  send 
away  all  his  Macedonians  and  prosecute  his  wars  with  a  following 
of  Persians — and  the  invaluable  aid  of  his  father  Zeus  Ammon. 
Alexander's  speech  to  the  mutineers  was  long  remembered  as  a 
masterpiece  of  fiery  eloquence.  He  bade  them  go  if  they  pleased, 
for  he  could  do  without  them.  He  reminded  them  that  his  father 
Philip  had  found  them  poor  skin-clad  shepherds  on  the  Mace- 
donian hills,  and  had  raised  them  to  be  rulers  of  Greece,  while  he 
himself  had  done  four  times  as  much,  made  them  the  kings  of  the 
earth,  and  placed  all  the  wealth  of  the  East  at  their  disposal.     All 


ALEXANDER  505 

324-323  B.C- 
he had  won  was  divided  with  them,  and  he  had  kept  nought  for 
himself  but  his  purple  robe  and  diadem — and  his  glory,  a  glory  in 
which  they  appeared  to  have  no  wish  to  share.  The  king's  elo- 
quence triumphed,  the  mutineers  were  quelled,  and  allowed  him  to 
execute  their  ringleaders  without  a  murmur. 

After  the  mutiny  was  over  Alexander  planned  to  visit  and 
regulate  all  his  newly  conquered  provinces.  He  sailed  down  the 
Euphrates  to  the  mouth,  to  meet  the  fleet  of  Nearchus  on  its  arrival 
from  India.  He  then  marched  to  Ecbatana,  where  his  favorite 
comrade  Hephaestion  died,  and  was  honored  with  the  most  mag- 
nificent funeral  that  the  world  has  ever  seen — it  is  said  to  have  cost 
twelve  thousand  talents.  Next  he  subdued  the  robber  tribes  in 
the  hills  between  Susiana  and  Media,  and  returned  to  winter  at 
Babylon.  At  the  gates  he  was  met — we  are  told — by  the  chief 
prophets  of  Chaldaea,  who  besought  him  not  to  enter  their  city, 
as  they  had  read  in  the  stars  that  evil  would  follow  him  if  he  came 
to  Babylon  at  that  conjuncture.  He  disregarded  the  prophecy  and 
spent  some  time  in  the  city  which  he  had  chosen  as  his  capital.  But 
in  the  spring  he  went  down  to  explore  the  water-ways  of  the  marshy 
delta  of  the  Euphrates,  where  he  was  planning  new  harbors  and 
canals.  In  the  marshes  he  caught  a  malarious  fever,  which  was 
destined  to  be  fatal.  He  despised  it  at  first,  overestimated  his 
strength,  and  endeavored  to  fight  down  the  disease  by  hard  drink- 
ing, to  which  he  had  grown  all  too  prone.  This  was  too  much 
for  a  constitution  tried  by  thirteen  years  of  incessant  campaigning. 
A  collapse  followed,  and  in  June,  323  b.c,  only  eleven  days  after 
his  first  seizure,  the  conqueror  of  the  East  expired,  leaving  his  king- 
dom to  an  infant  son  and  a  crowd  of  ambitious  and  unscrupulous 
generals. 

Alexander  was  taken  away  in  the  midst  of  his  activity;  he 
was  only  thirty-two,  and  had  been  looking  forward  to  many  another 
year  of  conquest  and  adventure.  At  the  moment  of  his  death  he 
was  planning  an  expedition  against  Arabia,  and  much  wider  schemes 
w^ere  running  in  his  brain.  If  one  of  them,  an  expedition  against 
Italy,  had  been  carried  into  effect,  the  history  of  the  world  might 
have  been  altered  to  an  inconceivable  extent.  It  has  always  been 
a  favorite  speculation  with  historians,  both  ancient  and  modern, 
to  imagine  what  would  have  happened  if  Alexander  had  been 
brought  into  contact  with  the  rising  power  of  Rome,  then  in  the 
midst  of  her  Samnite  wars. 


506 


GREECE 


323  B.C. 


Meanwhile  the  outlook  of  Greece  had  been  completely  changed. 
The  Macedonian  conquest  of  the  East  had  revolutionized  the  re- 
lations of  the  little  Hellenic  states  both  with  each  other  and  with 
the  outer  world.  The  old  system  of  local  autonomy,  and  constant 
wars  to  maintain  the  balance  of  power,  had  now  become  impossible. 
Civic  patriotism  had  received  a  blow,  but,  in  return,  the  Mace- 
donian conquest  offered  many  compensations,  both  to  the  state  and 
to  the  individual.     If  a  man  consented  to  forget  that  he  was  an 


Athenian  or  a  Corinthian,  and  merely  to  remember  that  he  was  a 
Hellene,  what  could  afford  him  greater  pride  than  to  watch  the 
great  empire  of  the  East  overrun  by  an  army  which,  if  guided  by 
a  Macedonian  prince,  was  largely  officered  by  Greek  generals,  and 
composed  in  two-thirds  of  its  strength  of  Greek  hoplites  and  pel- 
tasts?  What  could  be  more  inspiring  than  to  see  that  the  old 
Hellenic  genius  for  colonizing  was  not  extinct ;  to  behold  the  con- 
querors laying  hands  on  every  province  from  the  Aegean  to  the 
Indus,  and  covering  them  with  Greek  cities  as  great  and  as  vigorous 
as  any  that  had  ever  existed  in  the  Hellenic  fatherland?  For  the 
individual  who  consented  to  enter  the  service  of  the  Macedonian 
the  prizes  were  unnumbered  and  unlimited.     For  soldier  and  gen- 


ALEXANDER  507 

323   B.C. 

eral,  for  poet  or  painter,  for  scribe  or  rhetorician,  for  merchant 
or  seaman,  there  was  instant,  honorable,  and  lucrative  employment. 

Those  who  threw  themselves  into  the  new  life  of  the  days  of 
the  conquest  of  Asia  looked  back  on  the  old  times  of  the  "  balance 
of  power "  and  its  endless  wars  as  something  petty  and  absurd. 
Shortly  after  Alexander  had  won  his  crowning  victory  at  Arbela, 
news  came  to  him  of  a  battle  in  Greece.  Agis,  King  of  Sparta,  had 
fallen,  and  with  him  five  thousand  brave  men  more ;  but  Alexander 
turned  to  his  generals  and  said,  "  It  seems  that  while  we  have  been 
conquering  the  Great  King,  there  has  been  some  '  battle  of  mice ' 
in  Arcadia."  When  the  empire  of  the  world  was  being  won  in  the 
East,  fights  between  Greek  and  Greek  at  home,  for  border  fort 
or  a  strip  of  meadow  land,  seemed  mere  ebullitions  of  jealous 
folly. 

In  telling  the  tale  of  Alexander  we  have  already  almost  lost 
sight  of  Greece.  From  this  time  onward  its  history  no  longer  stands 
alone,  but  becomes  a  part  of  the  larger  whole.  The  causes  which  set 
the  course  of  events  working  are  no  longer  to  be  found  in  Greece 
herself,  but  must  be  sought  far  afield.  A  siege  of  Athens  or  a 
sack  of  Corinth  follows  in  strict  consequence  of  some  political 
change  in  Asia  or  Egypt.  The  history  of  Greece,  in  short,  cannot 
be  written  except  as  a  part  of  that  of  the  whole  Hellenized  world 
from  the  Tyrrhenian  Sea  to  the  Indus.  The  style  of  Polybius  must 
replace  that  of  Thucydides.  The  subject  is  no  longer  the  simple 
chronicle  of  events  around  the  Aegean  that  we  have  recorded 
hitherto,  and  needs  another  method  and  a  separate  treatment. 


FROM  ALEXANDER  TO  THE  PRESENT  DAY 
By  G.  Mercer  Adam 


Chapter    XLV 


ALEXANDER'S    SUCCESSORS    AND    THE    GREEK 
LEAGUES,  323-146  B.C. 

/IFTER  the  death  of  Alexander  the  Great  at  Babylon  in 
J—JL  323  B.C.,  the  question  arose  who  should  be  his  successor, 
A.  JL  as  he  left  no  children,  though  a  posthumous  child  was  ex- 
pected by  Roxana,  one  of  his  two  wives.  On  his  dying-  couch, 
Alexander,  by  giving  his  ring  to  his  oldest  general,  Perdiccas,  had 
indicated  the  man  whom  he  himself  desired  to  intrust  with 
the  affairs  of  his  mighty  empire,  and  who,  in  the  event  of  his 
Bactrian  spouse  having  a  man-child,  should  have  supreme  com- 
mand during  the  regency.  This  disposition  of  affairs — if  we 
except  Perdiccas's  guardianship  of  the  infant  child — was,  how- 
ever, not  carried  out,  owing  to  jealousies  among  the  cavalry  and 
the  infantry  commanders  of  the  army;  and  hence  the  nobles 
were  obliged  to  acknowledge  Alexander's  feeble-minded  half- 
brother,  Philip  xA-rrhidaeus,  as  monarch,  with  the  nominal  provision 
that  the  throne  would  in  time  revert  to  Roxana's  child,  the  infant 
Alexander.  The  career  of  this  Philip  Arrhidaeus — the  illegitimate 
son  of  Philip  IL — was,  however,  alike  undistinguished  and  brief, 
for  both  Macedonia  and  Greece  continued,  nominally  at  least,  to  be 
under  Antipater,  one  of  Alexander's  generals,  who  succeeded  Per- 
diccas in  the  regency  on  the  latter's  death  in  321  b.c.  ;  while  Philip's 
own  end  came  by  murder  in  B.C.  317.  Other  misfortunes  ere  long 
pursued  the  family  of  Alexander,  for  his  widow  Roxana  ruth- 
lessly did  away  with  the  Emperor's  Persian  wife,  Statira,  the 
daughter  of  Darius;  while  she  herself  and  the  infant  king  were 
shut  up  in  Amphipolis  and  were  subsequently  (311  B.C.)  murdered 
by  order  of  Cassander,  Antipater's  son,  who  was  meanwhile  waging 
war  against  Alexander's  rival  successors.  Olympias,  the  mother 
of  Alexander,  took  part  against  Cassander,  and  was  put  to 
death  by  him  in  316  B.C.;  while  Alexander's  sister,  Cleopatra,  was 
murdered  in  308  b.c.  by  Antigonus,  when  on  her  way  to  marry  his 
rival,  Ptolemy  Soter,  in  Egy^pt.     To  such  violent  ends  did  all  the 

511 


512  GREECE 

323  B.C. 

members  of  Alexander's  family  come;  while  the  supreme  con- 
trol of  his  kingdom  was  contended  for  by  his  chief  generals,  who 
had  apportioned  among  themselves  the  nominal  sovereignty  of  the 
several  Greek  states  and  of  Alexander's  conquests.  This  division 
gave  the  satrapy  of  Egypt  to  Ptolemy  I.,  Thrace  to  Lysimachus, 
Syria  and  Asia  Minor  (Great  Phrygia)  to  Antigonus,  and  the  un- 
subdued country  south  of  the  Euxine  (Cappadocia  and  Paphla- 
gonia)  to  the  Greek  Eumines,  who  had  been  Alexander's  private 
secretary.  Athens  and  Macedonia  were  under  Antipater,  who  was 
afterwards  associated  with  Craterus.  Later  on,  the  number  of 
kingdoms  was  reduced  and  rearranged ;  while  on  the  death  of  Anti- 
pater, in  318  B,c._,  Macedonia  and  Greece  fell  to  the  general  Poly- 
sperchon,  though  intrigued  against  by  Cassander,  who,  obtaining 
from  Antigonus  a  fleet  and  army,  defeated  Polysperchon  and  re- 
stored the  Piraeus  to  the  Athenians,  thus  securing  for  a  time  the 
latter's  good  will. 

Meanwhile  in  Greece  there  had  been  incipient  revolts  against 
Macedonian  domination,  inspired  partly  by  the  patriotism  of  De- 
mosthenes, and  partly  by  the  intrigues  of  Persian  satraps.  At 
Athens,  especially,  hostility  to  the  ascendent  influence  of  Macedonia 
was  revived  on  the  death  of  Alexander.  This  was  provoked  by  the 
conqueror's  decree,  issued  before  his  death,  that  every  Greek  state 
was  to  recall  its  exiles,  an  order  fraught  with  menace  to  the  local 
administrations  of  each  Greek  city.  The  decree  led  to  the  outbreak 
of  the  brief  Lamian  war  (323-322  B.C.),  in  which  a  Greek  force 
under  the  Athenian  general,  Leosthenes,  defeated  the  Macedonian 
Antipater  and  compelled  him  to  seek  refuge  within  the  walls  of 
Lamia.  Llere  he  was  besieged  by  the  revolted  Greeks,  first  under 
Leosthenes,  and,  wdien  the  latter  was  mortally  wounded  in  a  sally 
of  the  garrison,  then  under  Antiphilus.  The  siege  was  raised, 
and  Antiphilus  compelled  to  meet  and  fight  a  Macedonian  relief 
column  approaching  Lamia,  in  which  the  Greeks  were  victorious. 
Antipater,  meanwhile,  escaped  with  his  garrison  from  Lamia,  and 
being  reinforced  by  another  relieving  contingent,  composed  largely 
of  Alexander's  veterans  just  returned  from  Asia,  he  gave  fight  to 
the  Greeks  at  Crannon,  in  Thessaly,  and  defeated  them.  The  result 
was  disastrous  to  Greek  strivings  after  independence  and  fatal  to 
the  leaders  of  the  anti-]\Iacedonian  party  at  Athens,  among  whom 
were  Hyperides  and  Demosthenes.  The  latter,  being  forced  to  flee 
from  arrest  on  the  arrival  in  the  city  of  a  Macedonian  garrison,  was 


ALEXANDER'S    SUCCESSORS  513 

318-308  B.C. 

subsequently  driven  to  end  his  life  by  poison,  sucked  from  the  tip  of 
a  writing-reed  which  the  great  orator  and  statesman  carried  con- 
cealed about  his  person.  His  ally  and  fellow-orator,  Hyperides, 
was  later  slain  at  Corinth  by  Antipater's  orders.  Besides  these 
tragic  results  of  the  Lamian  war,  over  10,000  Greek  citizens  \vere 
transported  to  Africa,  Thrace,  and  Italy;  while  the  Greek  cities  had 
to  sue  for  Macedonian  clemency,  obtained  by  Phocion,  at  the  cost 
of  many  humbling  submissions,  including  the  establishment  of  for- 
eign garrisons  in  their  midst. 

]\Iacedonian  supremacy,  on  the  whole,  however,  was  not 
over-irksome  in  Greece  ;  and  the  constitutions  granted  the 
several  towns,  in  the  main,  w'orked  well.  Aetolia  for  a  time 
held  out  for  independence,  and  though  invaded  by  Antipater  and 
Craterus.  her  people  sought  refuge  in  the  mountainous  parts  of 
their  country,  and  on  the  abandonment  of  the  invasion  man- 
aged to  maintain  their  liberty.  Otherwise,  Greece  became  wholly 
subject  to  Macedonia,  though  in  the  dissolution  of  Alexander's 
empire  and  the  struggle  that  w^ent  on  for  possession  of  power  by 
the  conqueror's  generals,  the  Hellenes  were  left  pretty  much  to 
themselves,  and  their  fair  country  was  reduced  for  a  long  period  to 
political  insignificance.  In  the  Mediterranean  islands,  in  Egypt 
and  Asia,  and  even  in  Italy,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Greeks  came 
to  the  front  and  rose  in  influence  and  prosperity.  Under  the  foster- 
ing protection  of  the  Ptolemies,  Hellenic  energies  were  at  this 
period  especially  manifest  at  Alexandria;  Antioch,  also,  became 
a  great  seat  of  Greek  culture;  while  the  Rhodians,  as  a  maritime 
people,  rose  to  importance  in  the  Aegean.  Chios  also  grew  in 
wealth,  and,  with  Byzantium,  maintained  a  considerable  navy.  Nor 
was  Greek  influence,  even  at  this  era  of  decline,  confined  merely 
to  material  things :  Hellenic  culture  was  a  high  factor  of  the  time, 
and  on  the  Romans  especially  Greek  civilization  and  Greek  literature 
were  becoming  potent  influence.  The  Greek  tongue  became  the 
literary  language  of  the  day.  Athens  drew  cultivated  Romans  to 
it,  as  the  home  of  art,  philosophy,  and  literature,  and  Roman  rule 
in  all  directions  came  to  disseminate  the  culture  and  intellectual 
life  of  Greece.  Nor  was  Christianity,  in  its  early  growth  and 
progress,  the  loser  by  all  this,  but  was  greatly  aided  by  the  diffusion 
of  the  Greek  language  and  civilization. 

Ere  political  extinction  fell  upon  Greece  after  the  Lamian  war, 
another  would-be  liberator  arose  in  the  person  of  Demetrius  Poli- 


514  GREECE 

308-294  B.C. 

orcetes,  the  "  besieger  of  cities,"  who  is  not  to  be  confounded  with 
Demetrius  Phalereus,  the  contemporary  Athenian  orator  and  poH- 
tician  who  had  been  placed  by  Cassander  at  the  head  of  the  admin- 
istration of  Athens  and  had  restored  its  aristocracy  to  influence. 
Demetrius  Pohorcetes  was  the  son  of  Autigonus  and  a  man  of  liigli 
mihtary  genius.  In  307  B.C.  he  captured  and  liberated  Athens, 
which  so  pleased  the  citizens  that  they  raised  altars  to  him  as  a  god, 
while  he  also  gained  their  favor  by  restoring  democracy  and  by 
driving  the  Macedonian  garrison  out  of  Munychia.  In  306  b.c.  he 
set  out,  at  his  father's  bidding,  to  liberate  Cyprus  from  the  Egyp- 
tians, and  by  a  brilliant  marine  victory  over  Ptolemy  at  Salamis  he 
gained  possession  of  the  island.  Failing  in  his  assault  on  Rhodes, 
which  lasted  a  year,  Demetrius  returned  to  Greece,  and  ex])elled 
Cassander's  forces  from  the  Peloponnesus.  In  303  B.C.  he  bound  the 
Greek  states  against  Cassander  and  his  allies  in  a  league  of  which 
he  and  his  father,  Antigonus,  were  the  heads.  Later  on  he  sought 
to  attack  Macedon,  but  this  brought  Cassander,  with  Lysimachus, 
Ptolemy,  and  Seleucus,  upon  him  and  his  father;  and  in  the  battle 
of  Ipsus,  in  Phrygia,  Antigonus  was  worsted  and  lost  his  life. 
Demetrius  barely  escaped  a  like  fate.  The  effect  on  Greece  of  this 
disaster  was  adverse  to  Demetrius's  interests,  though  he  continued 
to  seek  liellenic  favor,  and  retained  the  possession  of  his  fleet.  His 
prospects  were  improved  by  a  quarrel  which  broke  out  between 
Ptolemy  and  Seleucus,  and  the  latter  leagued  himself  with  Deme- 
trius, who  renewed  his  efforts  to  win  back  Greece,  now  (297  b.c.) 
with  Macedon  relieved  by  death  from  the  rule  of  Cassander. 

Athens  at  this  time  was  under  the  tyrannous  rule  of  Lachares, 
a  creature  of  Cassander,  and  to  save  the  city  from  his  violence 
Demetrius  invested  the  town  by  land  and  water.  After  a  year's 
siege,  Lachares  took  flight  and  the  city  surrendered,  when  it  was 
occupied  by  the  troops  of  the  now  victorious  Demetrius,  who  once 
more  became  master  of  the  country.  Macedonia  meanwhile  had  its 
internal  troubles.  Philip,  Cassander's  eldest  son.  wdio  had  suc- 
ceeded his  father,  died  two  years  after  his  succession,  namely  in 
295  B.C.,  and  a  dispute  arising  between  Antipater  and  Alexan- 
der, Cassander's  younger  sons,  Alexander  appealed  for  aid  to 
Demetrius  Pohorcetes.  In  response  to  this  call,  the  latter  marched 
into  Macedonia,  but  instead  of  assisting  Alexander  he  assas- 
sinated him  and  made  himself  king  (294  b.c).  The  conse- 
quences of  this  atrocity  pursued  him  throughout  his  seven  years' 


ALEXANDER'S    SUCCESSORS  515 

287-168  B.C. 

reign,  for  the  old  league  which  had  long  been  adverse  to  him 
took  the  field  against  him,  aided  by  the  Epirot  prince,  Pyrrhus, 
who  had  fought  on  Demetrius's  side  at  Ipsus.  Demetrius  was 
finally  expelled  from  Macedonia,  while  the  kingdom  fell  to  Ly- 
simachus  of  Thrace,  thus  reducing  the  number  of  half-Greek  king- 
doms to  three — Macedonia,  Syria,  and  Egypt.  Demetrius  mean- 
while fell  into  the  hands  of  his  son-in-law,  Seleucus  of  Syria,  who 
kept  him  in  a  comfortable  captivity  until  his  death,  which  oc- 
curred 283  B.C.  Seleucus  himself,  three  years  later,  was  treach- 
erously murdered  by  Ptolemy  Ceraunus,  a  wandering  son  of  Ptolemy 
of  Egypt.  This  son  of  Ptolemy  now  seized  the  Macedonian  throne, 
but  was  shortly  afterwards  slain  in  battle  against  the  Gauls,  who  at 
this  period  came  in  great  hordes  to  the  East  and  found  a  home  in 
Asia  Minor,  in  the  region  called  after  them  Galatia.  Alexander's 
immediate  successors  and  favorite  generals  had  now  all  passed 
away,  as  had  the  members  of  his  own  family — the  royal  dynasty 
of  Macedonia.  The  latter  kingdom  now  (278  B.C.)  fell  by  seizure 
to  Antigonus  Gonatas,  son  of  Demetrius  Poliorcetes,  though  the 
occupancy  of  the  throne  was  contested  by  Pyrrhus,  who  had,  at 
the  invitation  of  Tarentum,  been  adventuring  conquests  in  Italy. 
In  the  war  between  the  two,  which  was  carried  on  on  Greek  soil, 
Pyrrhus  was  killed  (272  B.C.)  in  a  street  fight  at  Argos,  by  a 
woman  wdio  hurled  a  tile  at  him  from  a  house-top,  and  so  Antig- 
onus established  himself  unopposed  on  the  throne  of  Macedonia, 
which  his  dynasty  occupied  until  a  collapse  came  with  the  new 
rule  of  Rome  (168  b.c). 

Meanwhile  the  affairs  of  the  Greeks  in  Sicily,  after  Timoleon's 
death  (337  b.c),  had  fallen  into  disorder  and  confusion.  About 
twenty  years  later,  Syracuse,  which  for  long  had  had  trouble  with 
the  Carthaginians,  who  occupied  the  western  portion  of  the  island, 
was  under  the  ruthless  rule  of  the  soldier  Agathocles  and  his  mer- 
cenaries. The  plight  of  the  city  at  this  juncture  encouraged  the 
Carthaginians  to  renew  their  assaults  upon  it  and  upon  its  tyrant. 
The  latter,  seeking  to  induce  them  to  abandon  the  siege  of  the  city, 
was  bold  enough  to  cross  over  to  Africa  to  fight  the  Carthaginians 
in  their  own  country.  This  project,  though  persisted  in  for  some 
years,  partially  failed  of  its  effect,  for  the  Carthaginians  continued 
to  invest  Syracuse,  and  Agathocles,  returning  to  Sicily,  concluded  a 
peace  with  them,  but  on  the  condition  that  they  would  confine  them- 
selves to  their  own  district  on  the  west  of  the  island.     Agathocles, 


516  GREECE 

289-146  B.C. 

who  now  assumed  the  title  of  king,  for  a  time  interfered  with  affairs 
in  Italy,  associated  with  Pyrrhus,  who  had  become  his  son-in-law ; 
but  in  289  B.C.  the  Sicilian  king  died,  and  Pyrrhus,  after  some  fur- 
ther fighting  with  the  Romans,  succeeded  him  (about  278  B.C.). 
Later  on,  Pyrrhus  left  Sicily  and  returned  to  Italy,  when  Sicily, 
after  the  Punic  wars,  fell  under  tlie  power  of  Rome,  and  Greek 
independent  life  on  the  island  forever  passed  away.  The  later 
history  of  Pyrrhus  and  his  death  at  Argos  we  have  already  chron- 
icled. His  career  in  Italy,  where  he  aided  the  Tarentines  against 
the  Romans,  was  closed  at  Beneventum,  where  the  Romans  in- 
flicted upon  him  a  great  defeat  (275  B.C.). 

About  the  year  280  B.C.  a  fresh  impulse  had  been  given  to 
Greek  independence  of  Alacedonia  by  a  remarkable  confedera- 
tion of  Greek  cities  in  Achaia,  on  the  southern  shores  of  the 
Corinthian  Gulf.  This  was  no  less  than  the  revival  of  the 
old  Achaean  League,  which  had  been  dissolved  by  policy  of 
Philip  of  Macedon  and  his  more  famous  son,  Alexander.  Tlie 
confederation,  in  its  revived  form,  existed  from  280  B.C.  to  the  final 
loss  of  Greek  freedom,  in  146  B.C.,  when  Rome  became  dominant 
in  Greece,  The  league  became  noAV  political  rather  than  religious, 
and  had  for  its  object,  besides  especial  hostility  to  ^lacedonian 
domination,  the  design  of  uniting  all  the  cities  and  states  of  the 
Peloponnesus  against  that  hated  control  as  well  as  the  restoration 
and  maintenance  of  Greek  independence.  It  was  also  inspired  by 
hostility  to  the  encroachments  of  Rome.  The  confederation  at 
first  consisted  of  the  towns  of  Achaia,  but  later  Athens  and  Corinth 
and  the  Dorian  town  of  Sicyon  joined  the  league;  while  later  still 
it  embraced  all  the  chief  towns  of  the  Peloponnesus,  and  for  a  time 
even  Sparta,  the  bitter  enemy  of  the  league  under  its  usurping 
tyrant.  Activity  w^as  given  to  the  operations  of  the  confederacy 
by  the  Sicyon  statesman  and  general,  Aratus,  who,  in  251  B.C., 
brought  his  native  city  into  the  movement,  and  after  being  elected 
strategus,  or  commander-in-chief,  also  brought  in  Corinth. 

About  this  time  there  sprang  up  another  federation  in  oppo- 
sition to  Macedonian  rule,  and  a  rival  to  that  of  Achaia,  yet  of 
lesser  importance.  This  was  the  revival  of  the  ancient  Aetolian 
League,  a  union  of  the  cities  of  northern  Greece,  including  those 
of  Aetolia,  to  the  north  of  the  Corinthian  Gulf,  with  the  chief  towns 
of  Acarnania,  Locris,  and  part  of  Thessaly.  Between  this  rival 
federation  and  that  of  Achaia  there  was  much  jealousy,  a  circum- 


ALEXANDER'S    SUCCESSORS  517 

r?44-213  B.C. 

Stance  that  sadly  interfered  with  the  success  which  might  have 
crowned  the  efforts  of  both  leagues  against  Macedonia,  had  they 
been  united  and  stood  by  each  other.  Another  circumstance  that 
hindered  the  operations  of  the  more  influential  Achaean  Confedera- 
tion was  the  enmity  of  Sparta,  which  state,  degenerate  as  she  had 
become,  sought  to  be  supreme  in  the  Peloponnese.  Under  Agis 
IV..  an  attempt  was  made,  about  the  year  244  b.c,  to  reform  the 
state  and  re-establish  the  institutions  of  Lycurgus ;  but  to  this  his 
colleague,  Leonidas,  and  the  luxury-loving  Spartans  were  so  op- 
posed that  they  put  the  king  to  death.  Then  it  was  that  the  King 
Cleomenes  III.  arose,  who  from  his  reforms  and  his  high  military 
talent  had  been  styled  the  last  great  Spartan.  Being  opposed  to 
Aratus  and  desiring  that  Sparta  should  hold  her  supremacy  among 
the  Greek  states,  Cleomenes  unhappily  attacked  the  Achaean  League 
and  pressed  so  heavily  upon  it  and  upon  Aratus  that  the  league 
called  to  its  aid  Antigonus  Doson,  King  of  Alacedon.  The  result 
was  that  Cleomenes  was  given  battle  at  Sellasia,  in  Laconia,  by 
the  Achaeans  and  Macedonians,  and,  though  he  fought  bravely,  he 
and  his  Spartans  were  utterly  routed,  while  he  himself  had  to  seek 
safety  in  Egypt.  Sparta  was  then  (221  B.C.)  taken  possession  of 
by  Antigonus;  and  though  for  the  time  it  was  powerless  to  inter- 
fere with  the  league,  its  nominal  independence  was  respected,  and 
that  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  Spartan  monarchy  had  ceased  to 
exist. 

Shortly  after  this  the  end  also  came  to  the  career  of  Antigonus 
Doson,  who  on  his  death,  in  220  B.C.,  was  succeeded  on  the  ]\Iace- 
donian  throne  by  Philip  V.  This  young  monarch,  son  of  Demetrius 
II.,  reigned  for  over  forty  years,  and  became  an  effective  ally  of 
the  Achaean  League,  in  his  hostility  alike  to  the  Aetolians  and  to 
the  Romans,  the  latter  of  whom  were  at  the  time  harassed  in  Italy 
by  the  Carthaginians  under  the  great  Hannibal.  Though  Philip  V. 
took  up  the  Achaean  cause  against  the  Aetolians  and  defeated  them 
in  battle,  he  subsequently  (217  B.C.)  made  peace  with  them,  and 
showed  Achaia  that  he  cared  more  for  his  own  ambitions  than  he  did 
for  the  confederacy  whose  interests  he  had  espoused.  This  ere  long 
was  made  clear,  when,  finding  Aratus,  the  head  of  the  league,  in 
his  way,  he  caused  him  to  be  poisoned  213  B.C.  In  his  fear  of 
the  growing  power  of  Rome,  whose  arms,  in  spite  of  Carthaginian 
aggression  in  Italy,  might  any  day  be  expected  in  Greece  or  Alace- 
donia,  Philip  Y.  continued  to  support  the  Achaean  League,  which 


518  grp:ece 

197-189  B.C. 

was  also  hostile  to  the  great  republic  on  the  Tiber.  The  Romans, 
disliking  this  attitude  of  Philip,  naturally  formed  an  alliance  with 
the  Aetolians,  and  after  the  victory  at  Zama  over  Hannibal,  gained 
by  their  general,  Scipio  Africanus,  and  the  peace  dictated  to 
Carthage  which  brought  the  second  Punic  war  to  a  close,  they 
turned  upon  the  Macedonian  king,  and  at  Cynoscephalae,  Thessaly, 
totally  defeated  Philip  and  compelled  him  to  retire  from  Greek  soil 
and  confine  himself  to  his  own  Alacedonian  possessions.  This  oc- 
curred in  197  B.C.,  but  though  Philip's  defeat  freed  Greece  from 
Macedonian  dominion,  it  at  the  same  time  put  the  country  in  the 
fetters  of  Rome.  The  Aetolians,  though  allies  of  Rome,  were  the 
first  to  realize  this,  for  feeling  chagrined  that  their  aid  in  the  battle 
of  Cynoscephalae  did  not  bring  their  league  any  compensation  or 
increase  of  territory,  they  made  overtures  to  the  Syrian  king, 
Antiochus  the  Great,  who  was  himself  at  enmity  with  Rome. 
Antiochus  came  to  Greece  in  192  B.C.  to  aid  the  Aetolians,  but  a 
year  later  the  Romans  defeated  him  at  Thermopylae.  They  after- 
Vv-ards  defeated  him  again  at  Magnesia,  Lydia,  and  he  had  to 
accept  humiliating  terms ;  while  the  Aetolians  were  forced  to  seek 
safety  in  the  town  of  Ambracia,  where,  however,  they  were  be- 
sieged by  the  Roman  legions,  and  were  compelled  to  surrender 
and  become  the  subject  allies  of  Rome.  This  brought  an  end,  in 
189  B.c.^  to  the  Aetolian  League. 

For  over  forty  years  after  the  dissolution  of  the  Aetolian 
League  the  Achaean  League  maintained  a  weary  and  futile 
struggle  for  Greek  independence.  For  a  time  its  prospects  were 
hopeful  under  the  able  generalship  of  Philopoemen  of  Megalopolis, 
"  the  last  of  the  Greeks/'  as  he  has  been  termed ;  but  the  league 
henceforth  declined  in  power,  as  did  Macedonia,  w^hile  the  power 
of  Rome  steadily  grew,  helped  by  internal  factions  among  the 
Greeks  and  by  Roman  intrigue.  The  factions  within  the  league 
not  only  perversely  impaired  its  strength,  but  materially  interfered 
with  its  success.  So  serious  a  menace  did  this  become  that  a  Ro- 
manizing element  w^ithin  it  gradually  manifested  itself,  a  portion 
of  the  league  favoring  alliance  with  Rome,  while  the  more  patri- 
otic part  resisted  it.  The  opponents  of  Rome  were  led  by  Philop- 
oemen. while  the  leader  of  the  Romanizing  faction  was  at  this  time 
Deinocrates.  Philopoemen,  however,  was  strategus,  and  while  he 
lived  he  deservedly  had  much  influence.  He  it  was  who  forced 
Sparta   to   join   the  league,    an   act  which    was    followed   by   the 


ALEXANDER'S    SUCCESSORS  519 

183-150  B.C. 

adhesion  of  the  states  of  Ehs  and  Messenia.  The  latter,  however, 
under  Roman  influence,  was  induced  to  withdraw  from  it,  and 
this  being  resented  by  Philopoemen,  he  marched  against  it,  only 
to  find  himself  entrapped  by  the  Messenians,  who  led  him  in 
chains  to  their  chief  city,  where  he  was  forced  to  drink  poison 
(183  B.C.).  This  dastardly  act  provoked  the  league  to  severe 
reprisals,  for  it  ordered  Lycortas,  now  strategus,  to  invade  and 
lay  waste  their  country,  while  Deinocrates  and  his  principal  officers 
were  driven  to  take  their  own  lives.  Besides  thus  avenging  their 
leader's  death,  Messenia  was  once  more  brought  into  the  Achaean 
League. 

Shortly  after,  in  179  B.C.,  Philip  V.  died,  his  uneasy  spirit 
nursing  to  the  last  the  hope  of  again  taking  the  field  against 
Rome.  His  son,  Perseus,  succeeded  him.  Perseus,  who  wms 
the  last  King  of  Macedon,  inherited  his  father's  distrust  and  dislike 
of  the  Romans,  and  not  many  years  were  suffered  to  pass  before 
he  began  to  make  w^arlike  preparations  against  them.  Learning 
speedily  of  this,  Rome  at  once  declared  war  upon  Macedon,  in 
which  the  Achaean  League  was  forced  to  take  part  with  the  Roman 
legions,  and  in  168  B.C.,  at  the  battle  of  Pydna,  Perseus  was  de- 
feated and  carried  in  captivity  to  Italy.  Some  years  after  this, 
his  ancient  kingdom,  that  had  long  defied  conquest,  and  had  so 
ruthlessly  trampled  on  the  liberties  of  Greece,  was  itself  wiped  out 
and  humbled  to  the  status  of  a  Roman  province.  Upon  Greece  and 
tlie  League  the  defection  of  Macedonia  had  lamentable  conse- 
quences, for  Rome  not  only  became  increasingly  dominant,  but  it 
exiled  many  of  the  more  influential  Greeks  who  were  known  to 
favor  Macedonia  rather  than  the  power  on  the  Tiber,  while  about 
a  thousand  Achaeans  were  carried  as  hostages  to  Italy. 

With  the  fall  of  Macedonia  the  end  of  Greek  freedom  drew 
near.  Its  crushed  condition  could  hardly  be  better  shown  than  by 
stating  that  the  chief  Hellenic  cities,  especially  those  on  the  coast, 
were  powerless  to  prevent  the  carrying  away  to  Italy,  by  rapacious 
Roman  soldiers  and  sailors,  of  the  priceless  works  of  Greek  art, 
together  with  the  gold  and  other  treasure  of  its  rich  citizens ;  while 
many  of  the  inhabitants,  unscrupulously  suspected  of  hostility  to 
Rome,  were  either  exiled  or  sold  into  slavery.  Among  the  exiles 
of  note  was  the  historian  Polybius,  whose  writings  are  the  au- 
thority of  the  period.  To  him  Greece  was,  in  150  b.c,  indebted 
for  the   return   to   their  homes   of  many   of  these   exiles   whose 


520  GREECE 

150-147    B.C. 

souls  yearned  to  see  once  more  their  Hellenic  shores,  though  now 
sadly  changed  by  the  turmoil  of  faction  and  the  devastation  of 
foreign  conquest. 

The  last  act  of  the  drama  of  Greek  independence  represents 
the  Achaean  League's  expiring  hostility  to  Sparta,  which  resulted 
in  the  league's  collapse  and  the  submission  of  all  Greece  to  Rome. 
The  facts  are  these :  the  Achaeans,  now  under  Diaeus  as  strategus, 
quarreled  with  Sparta  over  the  question  of  its  boundaries,  and  that 
state  appealed  directly  to  the  Roman  senate,  instead  of  through  the 
channel  of  the  federated  league.  The  latter,  at  the  same  time, 
made  its  own  representation  of  facts  to  Rome,  when  Sparta  with- 
drew from  the  league,  and  the  league,  in  its  design  to  coerce 
Sparta,  put  its  forces  in  motion  and  worsted  Sparta  in  the  field. 
Meanwhile  the  Roman  senate  sent  a  commission  to  Corinth  147  B.C. 
to  look  into  and  report  on  the  matter,  the  result  of  which  was 
the  issue  of  an  edict  of  the  senate  enforcing  the  separation  of  not 
only  Sparta,  but  Corinth,  Argos,  and  other  Greek  cities,  from  the 
league.  At  this,  Diaeus,  acting  for  the  league,  threw  himself 
with  a  large  body  of  Achaean  troops  into  Corinth,  and  Rome  re- 
taliated by  investing  them  and  the  city.  The  siege  was  conducted 
by  MetelluSj  who  offered  favorable  terms  to  the  besieged  to  sur- 
render; but  Diaeus  was  stubborn  and  even  put  to  death  a  number 
of  his  own  officers  who  advised  capitulation.  At  this  juncture  the 
Roman  consul,  L.  Mummius,  brought  to  Corinth  fresh  levies  and 
proceeded  with  the  siege  himself.  In  a  sally  from  the  city  a  great 
battle  was  fought  on  the  Isthmus,  when  Diaeus  was  disastrously 
defeated  and  fled  to  Megalopolis,  where  he  died  by  his  own  hand. 
Mummius,  who  thus  completed  the  Roman  conquest  of  Greece,  now 
entered  Corinth,  and,  stripping  the  city  of  its  rare  art  treasures, 
which  he  sent  to  Rome,  he  set  fire  to  it  and  leveled  it  to  the  ground. 
The  Achaean  League  was  at  the  same  time  broken  up ;  indeed,  all 
Greek  leagues  were  henceforth  forbidden ;  its  army  was  disbanded 
and  a  tax  was  laid  upon  the  whole  country;  while  Greece  and 
Macedonia  became  a  Roman  province. 


Chapter  XLVI 

UNDER    ROMAN    RULE,   146  B.C.-476  A.D. 

ROMAN  dominion  over  Greece  was,  on  the  whole,  both  mod- 
erate and  just,  and  the  Greeks  themselves  were  glad  to 
-  be  delivered  from  the  distractions  of  internal  faction. 
Each  Greek  state  was  left  its  own  government,  though  heavily  bur- 
dened by  taxation.  Ere  long,  moreover,  the  Greeks  were  to  need 
the  protection  which  Roman  arms  gave  them  and  the  assiduous  care 
which  they  received  from  Rome  under  its  Emperors.  To  the  first 
of  these,  Augustus,  Greece  was  indebted  for  separation  from 
Macedonian  jurisdiction  and  became  an  independent  province  of 
Rome,  consisting  not  only  of  the  Peloponnesus,  but  of  Central 
Greece.  The  cities,  for  some  centuries  at  least,  were  allowed 
to  have  their  own  constitutions.  Under  Augustus  the  Pan- 
Hellenic  organizations,  such  as  the  Assemblies,  the  Festivals, 
and  the  Olympic  Games,  were  revived  and  maintained,  and  even 
the  forming  of  leagues  was  permitted.  Sparta  and  Athens,  in 
acknowledgment  of  their  notable  past  history,  were,  it  ought  to  be 
said,  not  included  in  the  new  province  of  Achaia,  but  were  left  in- 
dependent; and  to  Athens,  as  still  the  home  of  literature,  art,  and 
philosophy,  Romans  with  cultured  tastes  came  for  education  and 
a  life  of  literary  ease,  which  they  could  not  well  enjoy  in  the  turbu- 
lent capital.  Aside  from  its  glorious  literature,  Greek  influence 
was  also  directly  felt  in  Rome,  in  the  homes  at  least  of  the  wealthy, 
where  the  instructors  of  Roman  youth  were  Greeks,  imbued  with 
Hellenic  culture  and  inspired  by  Greek  ideals. 

As  the  old  era  drew  to  its  close,  Greece  was,  for  a  time  at 
least,  again  the  theater  of  strife,  caused  by  the  wars  with  Rome 
and  its  client  states  in  the  East  undertaken  by  Mithridates,  King 
of  Pontus.  The  ambitions  of  this  able  monarch,  who  had  sub- 
jugated the  peoples  on  the  eastern  shores  of  the  Euxine,  mur- 
dered 80,000  Italians,  and  made  himself  master  of  the  Roman  prov- 
ince of  Asia,  had  roused  the  wrath  of  Rome,  especially  as  Athens 
and  many  in  Greece  desired  to  hail  him  as  a  deliverer.  War 
against  him  was  declared  by  Rome,  and  Mithridates,  crossing  over 

521 


522  GREECE 

86  B.C. -285  A.D. 

to  Greece,  was  met  by  the  great  Roman  general  Sulla.  In  two 
battles  in  Boeotia,  Mithridates  was  beaten  and  driven  out  of  Greece, 
while  Athens  in  revolt  was  besieged  and  stormed.  This  occurred 
in  86-85  B.C.  Two  years  later  and  again  in  74  B.C.  Mithridates 
gave  the  Romans  trouble ;  but  its  generals,  Lucullus  and  the  great 
Pompey,  defeated  and  crushed  him  and  drove  him  to  a  violent 
death.  His  kingdom,  PontuSj  was  now  incorporated  with  Bithynia 
and  the  kingdom  of  Syria,  which  later,  in  63  B.C.,  was  annexed 
as  a  Roman  province.  About  a  generation  later  Egypt  also  was 
absorbed  in  the  empire  of  Rome,  when  Cleopatra,  the  last  of  the 
Ptolemy  dynasty,  ended  her  life  with  the  Roman  Antony,  at  Alex- 
andria, after  the  disastrous  fight  at  Actium  in  30  B.C.  The  city  of 
Corinth  Vv^as  rebuilt  by  Julius  Caesar  and  made  the  Grecian  capital, 
thus  becoming  again  a  busy  sea-port. 

The  old  era  closes  under  the  rule  of  Augustus  Caesar,  who  lived 
on  until  14  a.d.,  and,  with  the  new  chronology,  or  more  correctly 
four  years  earlier,  the  birth  of  Christ  occurs,  which  was  to  revolu- 
tionize, by  the  Christian  creed,  the  morals,  the  philosophy,  and  the 
religious  thought  of  the  world.  In  33  a.d.,  in  the  nineteenth  year  of 
the  reign  of  Tiberius,  Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  crucified,  and  Paul, 
the  chief  of  Plis  apostles,  spread  the  knowledge  of  Christianity 
throughout  many  countries  of  the  ancient  world,  including  Syria, 
Rome,  and  Asia  Minor.  But  this  belongs  to  Roman  rather  than 
to  Grecian  history,  and  we  pass  from  it  to  pursue  our  especial 
narrative. 

During  the  imperial  regime  of  Rome,  that  is,  from  the  rule  of 
Augustus,  which  began  29  b.c,  to  the  era  of  Diocletian,  in  285 
A.D.,  Grecian  history  has  little  of  note  to  record.  This  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at,  for  since  the  Roman  state  had  developed 
into  a  great  world-power,  Hellenic  affairs  counted  for  little; 
while  Gaul  and  the  Germanic  tribes  began  to  give  trouble, 
Spain  also  called  for  supervision,  and  Syria  needed  checking  in 
her  interferences  with  Roman  administration  in  Judaea.  Rome 
had  moreover  to  give  attention  to  her  possessions  in  the  far  East, 
such  as  Parthia  and  Armenia,  and  to  Egypt,  whence  her  legions 
now  carried  Roman  influence  into  Arabia  and  Ethiopia.  The  wide 
extent  and  heavy  burdens  of  the  empire  were  such  that  Greece  in 
her  era  of  subjection  could  look  for  little  attention  from  Rome, 
save  the  surveillance  and  exactions  of  the  imperial  tax-collector. 
Otherwise,   the   yoke   of   her   conqueror   was   not   a   heavy   one, 


ROMAN    RULE  623 

29   B.C.-285  A.D. 

and,  though  under  military  control,  Greece  still  had,  to  some 
extent,  her  own  local  administrations  and  municipal  institu- 
tions. Under  Augustus,  and  more  especially  under  some  of  his 
successors,  the  country,  as  Felton  in  his  "  Greece,  Ancient  and 
Modern,"  points  out,  was  treated  with  considerable  favor,  and 
made  use  of  a  clement  authority  to  soften  the  bitterness  of  its 
decline.  "  Even  Nero,  the  amiable  fiddler  of  Rome,"  says  Felton, 
"  was  proud  to  display  the  extent  of  his  musical  abilities  in  Greek 
theaters.  .  .  .  The  noble  Trajan  allowed  the  Greeks  to  retain 
their  former  local  privileges,  and  did  much  to  improve  their  condi- 
tion by  his  wise  and  just  administration.  Hadrian  was  a  passion- 
ate lover  of  Greek  art  and  literature.  Athens  especially  received 
the  amplest  benefits  from  his  taste  and  wealth.  He  finished  the 
temple  of  the  Olympian  Zeus;  established  a  public  library;  built 
a  pantheon  and  a  gymnasium ;  rebuilt  the  temple  of  Apollo 
at  Megara;  improved  the  old  roads  of  Greece  and  made  new 
ones.  .  .  .  Antoninus  and  Marcus  Aurelius  showed  good  will  to 
Greece.  The  latter  rebuilt  the  temple  at  Eleusis,  and  improved 
the  Athenian  schools,  raising  the  salaries  of  the  teachers  and  in 
various  ways  contributing  to  make  Athens,  as  it  had  been  before, 
the  most  illustrious  seat  of  learning  in  the  world.  It  was  in  the 
reign  of  this  emperor,  in  the  second  century  of  our  era,  that  one 
of  the  greatest  benefactors  of  Athens  and  all  Greece  lived — Herodes 
Atticus,  distinguished  alike  for  wealth,  learning,  and  eloquence. 
Born  at  Marathon,  .  .  .  educated  at  Athens  by  the  best 
teachers  his  father's  wealth  could  procure,  he  became,  on  going  to 
Rome  in  early  life,  the  rhetorical  teacher  of  Marcus  Aurelius  him- 
self. Antoninus  Pius  bestowed  on  him  the  consulship;  but  he 
preferred  the  career  of  a  teacher  at  Athens  to  the  highest  polit- 
ical dignities.  .  .  .  and  he  was  followed  thither  by  young 
men  of  the  most  eminent  Roman  families,  from  the  emperor's 
down.  ...  At  Athens,  south  of  the  Ilisus,  he  built  the  stadium 
and  the  theater  of  Regilla.  ...  At  Corinth  he  built  a  theater; 
at  Olympia  an  aqueduct;  at  Adelphi  a  race  course,  and  at  Ther- 
mopylae a  hospital.  Peloponnesus,  Euboea,  Boeotia,  and  Epirus, 
too,  experienced  his  bounty." 

In  spite  of  all  this  the  glory  of  Greece  had  set.  Her  magnificent 
literature  still  dominated  the  civilized  world,  and  in  that  literature 
the  poetry  and  the  drama,  the  art  and  letters  of  Rome  sought  in- 
spiration and  example.     It  was  under  Greek  influences  that  at  this 


524  GREECE 

29    B.C. -285   A.D. 

period  Roman  letters  began  to  rise,  as  they  did  with  a  great  jjoiind 
under  Augustus,  stimulated  by  the  munificent  patronage  of  his 
minister,  Maecenas.  It  was  during  this  period  also  that  the  great 
Roman  poets,  Horace,  Virgil,  Ovid,  and  Catullus,  as  well  as  the  his- 
torian Livy,  lived  and  were  followed  at  a  later  time  by  the  satirist 
Juvenal,  and  Tacitus,  the  historian,  all  worthy  successors  of  the 
earlier  Roman  men  of  letters — Cicero,  Caesar,  Lucretius,  and  Lu- 
cullus.  Roman  law  shortly  after  this  (on  the  passing  of  the  Flavian 
dynasty)  was  perfected  and  brought  to  its  commanding  place  in  the 
judicial  systems  of  the  ancient  world;  wdiile  Roman  citizenship  be- 
came a  term  of  respect  as  well  as  of  appreciation  and  honor.  Tlie 
importance  of  the  latter  ^vill  be  manifest  when  we  remember  that 
Roman  dominion  at  this  era,  with  its  social  as  well  as  its  political 
bonds  and  the  civilizing  influences  it  effected,  particularly  after 
the  establishment  of  Christianity  under  Constantine.  extended 
northward  to  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube,  and  eastward  through 
southern  Europe  and  northern  Africa,  Egypt,  and  Syria,  to  the 
Euphrates. 

After  the  death  of  Augustus  Caesar  Greece  continued  its  now 
almost  somnolent  existence  under  his  successors  of  the  Julian 
house — Tiberius,  Caius  (Caligula).  Claudius,  and  Nero.  It  was 
in  Greece  Nero  sought  an  appreciative  audience  for  his  dilletante 
accomplishments,  journeying  there  in  66  a.d.^  and  joining  in  the 
Greek  festivals.  This  last  Roman  emperor  of  the  Julian  house 
deservedly  came  to  his  end  by  his  own  hand,  and  though  he  gave 
Greece  her  freedom,  it  was  only  to  be  annulled  in  the  next  reign. 
EFnder  the  Flavians  a  Jewish  war  occurred,  and  in  the  historic  siege 
of  Jerusalem  by  Titus  (70  a.d.  )  the  city  was  completely  destroyed, 
and  Judaea  was  detached  from  Syria  and  made  a  separate  Roman 
province.  Greece  met  with  continued  Roman  indifference  under 
the  other  emperors  of  the  Flavian  family,  Rome  in  Titus's  brief 
reign  being  occupied  in  the  west  with  extending  Roman  dominion 
in  Britain,  and  by  tlie  other  chief  incident  of  his  era — the  calamitous 
eruption  of  Vesuvius,  which  entombed  the  famed  cities  of  Pompeii 
and  Herculaneum.  Under  the  quasi-continuation  of  the  Flavian 
dynasty,  "  the  good  emperors,"  as  they  are  called.  Greece  was  given 
more  attention,  particularly  by  Hadrian,  Antoninus  Pius,  and  the 
moralist,  Marcus  Aurelius.  Under  these  emperors  and  their 
predecessor,  Trajan,  literature  flourished,  and  science  and  phi- 
losophy were  encouraged.     Parthia,  however,  gave  Rome  trouble 


ROMAN    RULE  525 

29  B.C.-285  A.D. 

at  this  period,  while  a  Jewish  war  broke  out,  in  which  Judaea 
greatly  suffered  and  the  Jews  were  heavily  taxed  and  cruelly  dis- 
persed. Hadrian,  as  is  well  known,  indulged  at  this  era  his  taste 
for  building  important  structures,  both  at  Rome  and  at  Athens ; 
while  in  his  journeys  throughout  his  empire  he  paid  heed  to  the 
wants  of  his  subjects  and  sought  to  do  them  justice.  Greece  he 
repeatedly  visited,  and  with  a  noted  preference,  shown  also  by  his 
successors,  the  Antonines,  who  endowed  public  charities,  promoted 
art  and  science,  and  extended  the  good  administration  of  the  law. 
Under  Marcus  Aurelius,  the  last  of  "  the  good  emperors,"  Greece 
was  especially  favored,  owing  to  his  bent  as  a  philosopher,  famed 
for  his  noble  spirit  and  high  ethical  attainments,  preserved  to  us 
in  his  Meditations,  which  were  originally  written  in  Greek.  Un- 
der him  and  his  predecessor,  Antoninus  Pius,  the  higher  instruc- 
tion in  the  schools  of  philosophy  w^as  placed  imder  the  charge  of 
the  emperors,  who  defrayed  the  cost.  This  revered  and  medita- 
tive sage  reigned  wisely  and  ably  over  his  one  hundred  and  twenty 
millions  of  people,  and  protected  the  empire  from  the  predatory 
designs  of  German  barbarians.  Though  far  from  being  kindly 
disposed  to  the  Christians,  whom,  from  religious  conviction,  he 
persecuted,  he  was  philanthropic  and  peace-loving,  and  lived  only 
for  the  happiness  and  v^-eal  of  his  subjects. 

His  successor  and  son,  Commodus,  was  unhappily  a  man  of  an 
utterly  different  type,  inheriting  obviously  some  of  the  depraved 
vices  of  his  mother,  the  profligate  wife  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  His 
reign  lasted  for  twelve  years,  and  was  ended  by  his  life  being 
taken  by  his  favorite  mistress,  who  poisoned  him.  Under  him 
and  his  successors,  Roman  imperialism  had  to  struggle  with  revolu- 
tions and  an  adverse  fate,  for  the  third  century  was  marked  by 
revolts,  insurrections,  tyrannies,  and  the  misdoings  of  an  unruly 
mercenary  soldiery.  The  Persians  at  this  time  overthrew  Roman 
rule  and  founded  a  monarchy  of  their  own;  while  the  Goths, 
Franks  and  Alemanni  invaded  various  distant  parts  of  the  empire 
(the  Goths  overrunning  Greece  and  Asia  Minor)  and  threatened 
its  dissolution.  The  Emperor  Aurelian  (270-275)  did  much  to 
check  these  and  other  invasions  and  to  restore  the  military  suprem- 
acy of  the  Roman  nation.  Aurelian  also  brought  captive  to 
Rome,  after  conquering  her  kingdom,  the  famed  Zenobia,  Queen 
of  Palmyra,  who  aimed  at  the  sovereignty  of  the  Eastern  world, 
liis  successor,  M.  Aurelius  Probus^  one  of  the  many  emperors  who 


526  GREECE 

282-323   A.D. 

unlawfully  seized  the  throne  of  Rome,  also  did  good  service  in 
repelling  the  Teutons,  and,  where  he  could,  he  encouraged  them  to 
settle  on  and  till  Roman  soil,  and  even  enter  the  very  miscellaneous 
Roman  army,  which  had  now  become  Roman  only  in  name,  for  it 
was  recruited  from  Oriental  and,  in  the  West,  from  half-barbaric 
soldiery.  By  his  own  mutinous  men  M.  Aurelius  Probus  was 
slain,  in  282. 

After  a  brief  succession  of  soldier-emperors.  Cams,  Nu- 
merianus,  and  Carinus,  there  opens  a  new  era  in  the  rule  of  the 
empire,  under  Diocletian.  Diocletian,  who  came  to  the  throne 
in  284  A.  D.,  addressed  himself  to  the  task  of  saving  the  shaken 
empire  from  dissolution  by  the  astute  device  of  dividing  it  among 
associate-rulers  or  regents,  two  of  whom  continued  to  be  styled 
emperors,  with  the  title  of  Augustus,  and  two  subordinates  to  be 
distinguished  by  the  affix  of  Caesar,  each  with  his  own  chief  admin- 
istrative city  or  capital.  This  splitting  up  of  the  monarchy  did  not 
work  well,  and  it  was  subsequently  discontinued,  when  tested  by 
the  difficulties  inherent  in  the  question  of  succession.  It,  how- 
ever, served  the  immediate  purpose,  which  was  the  better  to  guard 
Roman  supremacy,  threatened  as  it  was  at  so  many  points  by 
grasping  or  envious  enemies.  "  Speaking  roughly,  this  fourfold 
division  of  the  empire,"  says  the  historian  Freeman,  "  answered 
to  Italy  itself  and  the  neighboring  countries,"  the  capital  of  which 
was  Milan,  instead  of  Rome.  "  the  western  provinces  (Gaul,  Spain, 
and  Britain),"  whose  capital  was  periodically  Trier  (Treves)  in 
Gaul  and  Vork  in  Britain ;  "  with  the  Greek  and  the  Oriental 
provinces."  the  chief  cities  of  local  administration  being  Antioch 
in  Syria  and  Xicodemia  in  Asia  Minor.  Diocletian  and  his  fel- 
^w-emperor  abdicated  in  305  a.d.,  when  their  subordinates  were 
raised  to  the  rank  of  imperatores,  and  two  new  appointees  filled  the 
junior  posts  of  the  Caesars.  This  partnership  rule  lasted  for  some 
years,  though  on  Constantine's  becoming  Caesar,  in  306,  and 
attaining  the  rank  of  Augustus,  two  years  later,  a  new  force  in  the 
empire  came  to  the  front,  which,  in  323  a.d.,  dissolved  the  combina- 
tion administration  and  raised  Constantine  to  the  sole  and  supreme 
power  in  the  state.  The  signal  events  in  the  reign  of  Constantine, 
surnamed  "  the  Great,"  are  the  choice  of  ancient  Byzantium,  on 
the  Bosphorus  (the  modern  Constantinople),  as  the  new  capital 
of  the  empire,  and  the  establishment  of  Christianity  as  the  religion 
of  the  state. 


ROMAN    RULE  52T 

323-395  A.D. 

Great  were  the  influence  and  vitality  given  to  Christianity  by 
Constantine's  conversion  and  by  the  union  of  the  church  with  the 
state,  together  with  the  emperor's  personal  reverence  for  the  ordi- 
nances of  his  new  faith.  To  recognize  Christianity  and  invest  it 
with  supreme  importance,  so  soon  after  its  suppression  and  the 
relentless  persecution  of  its  adherents  by  Diocletian  and  Galerius, 
were  acts  not  only  of  a  man  of  great  tolerance,  but  those  also  of 
an  eminently  vigorous  and  enlightened  mind.  His  interest  in  the 
new  faith,  which,  he  was  shrewd  enough  to  foresee,  might  do  more 
for  the  unification  and  perpetuation  of  the  Roman  empire  than  the 
disintegrating  vices  of  paganism,  was  not  confined  to  the  formal 
recognition  of  it  by  the  state,  but  was  extended  also  to  interest  in 
its  doctrines  and  in  the  great  councils  of  the  church,  such  as  that 
of  Nicaea,  which  he  convened  and  presided  over,  as  well  as  to 
intimacy  with  the  early  fathers  of  the  church,  and  to  the  support 
of  schools  of  theology,  such  as  that  at  Alexandria.  In  spite  of  this 
attitude  of  Constantine,  and  later  on  of  Theodosius  the  Great,  who 
not  only  cemented  the  union  of  the  church  with  the  state,  but  sup- 
pressed paganism  and  closed  its  temples,  the  progress  of  Chris- 
tianity was  in  no  little  degree  hindered  by  divisions  among  its  great 
teachers — such  as  those  that  separated  the  Arians,  whom  Constan- 
tine favored,  and  the  followers  of  the  orthodox  Athanasius — and  by 
the  heresies  that  ere  long  crept  into  the  church.  Notwithstanding 
these  divisions  and  the  check  which  it  received  from  Julian,  "  the 
apostate."  who  sought  to  root  out  the  new  faith  and  restore  declin- 
ing paganism,  Christianity  made  way  throughout  and  beyond  the 
bounds  of  the  empire ;  while  it  greatly  stirred  the  minds  of  men, 
not  only  among  its  eminent  professors,  the  zealous  Latin  and  Greek 
fathers  of  the  church,  but  also  among  thoughtful,  educated  laymen, 
whose  hearts  became  open  to  its  teachings. 

After  the  time  of  Constantine  Christianity  gained  further 
prestige  in  the  reign  of  Theodosius  the  Great,  under  whom  the  final 
separation  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  empires  occurred.  In  his 
day  the  church  loomed  up  as  the  dominant  power  in  the  world, 
for  that  emperor  not  only  repressed  pagan  rites  and  sacrifices  and 
confiscated  pagan  temples,  but  exacted  from  the  bishops  and  presby- 
ters of  the  church  subscription  to  the  Nicene  creed.  For  his  own 
shortcomings — particularly  the  crime  of  putting  to  death  many 
thousands  of  the  people  of  Thessalonica  who  had  been  in  revolt — the 
emperor  did  ecclesiastical  penance  and  made  humble  submission  to 


528  GREECE 

395  A.D. 

St.  Ambrose,  Bishop  of  Milan.  A  great  soldier  himself  and  the  son 
of  one,  his  career  is  notable  for  his  struggle  with  the  Goths,  who 
again  overran  parts  of  the  empire.  These  Theodosius  defeated  in 
battle,  and  after  driving  them  out  of  Greece  and  Thrace  he  induced 
them  to  settle  in  Moesia  (corresponding  somewhat  to  modern  Bul- 
garia and  Servia)  and  to  become  allies  of  Rome  pledged  to  serve 
her  in  war.  With  his  death,  in  395  a.d. — almost  the  close  of  the 
fourth  century — occurred  the  separation  of  the  Roman  dominions 
into  a  Greek  or  east-Roman  and  a  west-Roman  empire.  The 
western  portion  now  began  to  fall  to  pieces,  as  a  consef[uence  of 
invasion  from  barbarian  tribes  and  the  very  composite  character  of 
the  people.  In  the  division  of  the  empire  two  sons  of  Theodosius 
continued  for  a  time  to  rule,  Honorius  reigning  in  the  East. 

In  treating  of  Greece  in  subjection  to  Rome,  we  have  dealt 
necessarily  more  with  events  affecting  Greater  or  Colonial  Greece 
than  with  Greece  itself,  which  at  that  period  and  for  long 
afterwards,  if  we  except  the  incidents  of  Teutonic  and  other  in- 
vasion, had  little  or  no  history  of  its  own  to  record.  The  condi- 
tion of  Hellas,  or  Greece  proper,  was  and  long  remained  a  humilia- 
tingly  dependent  one,  though  her  people  who  had  emigrated  from 
it,  either  freely  or  under  compulsion,  were  practically  the  dominant 
power  in  the  East.  There,  as  writers  on  Grecian  history  have 
pointed  out,  the  Roman  empire  became  Greek,  though  the  Greek 
nation  in  name  became  Roman.  "  Even  in  Asia,''  as  it  has  been 
remarked,  "  the  despotism  of  Rome  was  much  modified  by  the 
municipal  system  of  the  Greek  colonies  and  by  the  influence  of 
Greek  culture."  What  the  effect  of  the  latter  was  on  educated 
Romans,  and  to  what  extent  it  favorably  influenced  some  of  the 
emperors — Hadrian  for  example — has  been  already  noted ;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  has  been  indicated  how  far  the  Roman  occupation 
of  Greece  was  tolerated  by  her  own  people,  as  a  relief  from  and  a  pro- 
tection against  the  party  distractions  and  general  turbulence  of  the 
times.  Roman  dominion  in  Greece  w-as  never  acquiesced  in,  how- 
ever, as  was  that  of  Macedonia  before  and  after  the  era  of  Roman 
subjection,  and  for  the  obvious  reason  that  Greece  assimilated  the 
Macedonians  as  it  never  assimilated  the  Romans ;  nor  did  the 
Romans,  within  Hellas  at  least,  ever  assimilate  the  Greeks.  In 
Asia  and  in  Egypt,  as  well  as  in  the  other  eastern  provinces  and 
colonies  of  Greece  and  Macedonia,  Greeks  and  ^Macedonians  became 
almost  one  people.     The  effect  of  this  was  long  seen  in  the  East, 


ST.     AMIiKi;.-::.     lUSHol'     (Jl-      MII.AX.     KEFLSES     the     emperor     TliEOUOSIUS 
ADMISSION     INTO     HIS     CHURCH 

I\u:itin5    hy    Cchlij,-!   Fiigcl 


ROMAN    RULE  529 

369-378   A.D. 

both  to  its  advantage  and  to  the  advantage  of  the  Greeks  and 
Macedonians  themselves,  down  to  the  era  of  Mohammed.  In  the 
West,  on  the  other  hand,  the  effect  of  Roman  conquest  was  different, 
for  there  it  had  to  do  with  peoples  far  inferior  to  the  Greeks  and 
Macedonian-Greeks,  and,  being  much  less  civilized  and  without 
any  strong  bonds  of  national  and  social  life,  they  not  only  easily 
came  under  the  sway  of  the  conqueror,  but  received  the  impress  of 
new  institutions  and  in  no  little  degree  imbibed  new  manners,  cus- 
toms, and  tastes. 

The  Greeks,  moreover,  though  they  degenerated  under  their 
Roman  conquerors,  retained  another  and  distinguishing  feature  in 
their  character,  which  showed  itself  when  overrun,  as  they  occa- 
sionally were,  by  barbarians.  This  was  the  spirit  which  ani- 
mated them  in  seeking  to  resist  and  repel  from  their  country  the 
Goths  and  Huns  who  successively  invaded  it.  This  spirit  was  espe- 
cially manifest  at  the  era  of  the  "  wandering  of  the  nations,"  when 
the  Germanic  tribes,  ignoring  the  Rhine  frontiers  of  the  Roman 
dominions,  swept  down  over  Roman  territory.  Of  these  tribes, 
the  Goths  were  again  most  troublesome  in  the  reigns  of  the  last 
of  the  Western  emperors,  as  they  had  been  under  the  Valentinian 
dynasty.  Greece  was  at  this  period  inundated  by  them,  though 
the  Greeks  fought  bravely  in  their  effort  to  save  their  cities  from 
assault  and  pillage  and  to  drive  off  the  invaders.  Peace  between 
these  hordes  and  Rome  was  not  made  until  369  a.d.  Meantime, 
they  had  been  converted  nominally  to  Christianity,  and  had  extended 
their  power  far  into  Russia. 

Some  seven  years  later  (376  a.d.),  the  Goths  were  them- 
selves the  victims  of  foreign  invasion,  for  at  this  period  they  were 
pounced  upon  by  the  Huns  (Mongolians),  who  had  left  their  own 
country  bordering  on  China  and  made  their  appearance  in  Europe. 
Uniting  with  the  Alani,  whom  they  had  defeated,  the  Huns  then 
fell  upon  the  Visigothic  (Western  Goths)  nation  in  the  province 
of  Moesia.  The  latter,  seeking  to  repel  or  escape  from  the  savage 
invaders,  sought  Roman  aid  and  crossed  the  Danube ;  but  being 
badly  treated  by  the  Romans  they  turned  upon  them,  beat  them 
badly,  and  committed  many  depredations.  At  this,  the  emperor 
Valens  determined  to  give  further  battle  to  the  Visigoths,  whose 
forces  had  meanwhile  been  recruited  by  the  Eastern  Goths  (Ostro- 
goths) ;  he  met  them  in  battle  at  Adrianople  in  278  a.d.,  but  lost 
his  own  life  and  the  lives  of  a  large  portion  (some  60,000)  of  his 


630  GREECE 

395-462  A.D. 

army.  After  this  the  Goths  advanced  even  to  the  walls  of  Con- 
stantinople, where  they  turned  westward  and  ravaged  the  Euro- 
pean provinces  of  the  Greek  empire  and  committed  frightful  atroci- 
ties. A  truce  for  the  time  was  made  with  the  Goths  by  the  Emperor 
Theodosius,  but,  after  the  latter's  death,  in  395  a.d.,  the  Visigothic 
king.  Alaric,  invaded  Greece  in  the  following  year,  but  was  com- 
pelled to  retire  to  Epirus  in  397.  In  this  invasion  the  empire  was 
ably  served  by  the  Vandal  Stilicho,  guardian  of  the  young  Emperor 
Ilonorius,  the  younger  son  of  Theodosius  the  Great.  Alaric  w^as, 
however,  to  give  more  trouble  to  the  Romans,  for  in  400  a.d.  and 
in  the  immediately  succeeding  years  he  repeatedly  invaded  Italy, 
and  after  twice  besieging  Rome  he  at  last  (410  a.d.)  captured 
and  sacked  it. 

The  Huns,  under  their  famous  leader  and  king,  Attila,  "  the 
Scourge  of  God  "  as  he  was  called,  were  met  and  beaten  in  Gaul,  in 
451  A.D.J  by  the  Roman  general  Aetius.  Meantime  the  Goths  gave 
the  Romans  more  trouble,  for  Alaric  being  succeeded  by  his  brother- 
in-law,  Athanulf,  the  new  king  of  the  West  Goths,  made  a  plunder- 
ing raid  through  southern  Italy,  conquered  Aquitaine,  in  Gaul,  and 
after  signing  a  treaty  with  the  Emperor  Honorius  and  marrying  his 
sister  he  crossed  into  Spain  to  suppress  a  revolt  of  the  Vandals  and 
Suevi  against  the  empire.  1lie  Vandals,  under  their  king  Genseric,  at 
this  period  crossed  from  Spain  to  Africa  and  there  despoiled  Rome 
of  her  dominions;  while  his  fleet  proceeded  eastward  along  the 
Mediterranean  and  ravaged  the  coasts  of  both  Italy  and  Greece. 

At  this  era,  when  Roman  dominion  was  threatened  on  all 
sides  and  the  western  empire  was  about  to  fall,  Attila  and  his  Huns 
invaded  Gaul  in  451,  then  under  the  rule  of  the  Roman  emperor  of 
the  West,  Valentinian  III.  Here,  in  Gaul,  near  Chalons-sur-Marne, 
a  terrible  battle  was  fought  which  rescued  Europe  from  enslave- 
ment under  the  all-conquering  Tartar — "  a  struggle  for  life  and 
death,"  as  Ereeman  speaks  of  it,  "  between  the  Aryan  and  Turanian 
races  and  Christianity  and  civilization,  and  all  that  distinguishes 
Europe  from  Asia  and  Africa."  Victory  rested  with  neither  side, 
though  the  slaughter  was  pitiful.  Attila,  fearing  to  renew 
the  fighting,  retreated,  and,  recrossing  the  Rhine,  returned  into 
Hungary.  Erom  there  he  passed  in  the  following  year  (452  a.d.) 
into  Italy,  where  he  captured  and  pillaged  Aquilaeia  and  slaugh- 
tered thousands.  He  laid  waste  other  districts  of  the  country  and 
sacked  cities  until  the  Romans  were  obliged  to  make  peace,  after 


ROMAN    RULE  531 

453-476  A.D. 

Italy  had  become  almost  a  desert,  so  frightful  were  the  ravages  of 
the  Huns.  .  In  453  a.d.  Attila  died  suddenly  after  a  drunken 
debauch,  and  his  power  fell  with  him.  In  this  era  of  disaster  and 
devastation  Rome  suffered  from  other  depredations,  chiefly  by  the 
Vandals  in  Gaul,  Spain,  Northern  Africa,  and  in  Rome  itself; 
while  the  Teutonic  tribes  established  their  power  even  on  Russian 
soil.  In  the  general  wreck,  the  Roman  empire  of  the  West,  with 
the  forced  abdication  of  Romulus  Augustulus,  who  was  deposed  by 
Odoacer,  came  to  an  end,  and  the  era  of  the  Dark  or  Middle  Ages 
may  be  said  to  begin  (476  a.d.). 


Chapter    XLVII 

THE    MIDDLE   AGES    AND    TURKISH    YOKE, 
476-1821 

GRECIAN  history  in  the  early  part  of  the  Middle  Ages 
offers  little  of  its  own  to  record,  save  in  connection  with 
the  Greek,  Eastern,  or  Byzantine  empire,  of  which  it 
continued  to  form  a  part.  That  empire,  on  the  extinction  of  its 
western  division,  was  now  once  more  united  and  ruled  from  Con- 
stantinople. Rome  and  all  Italy,  as  the  result  of  contact  with 
barbarism,  came  under  the  rule  of  Odoacer  (descended  from  one 
of  the  Germanic  tribes  on  the  Danube),  subordinate  to  Zeno,  who 
was  at  this  period  Byzantine  emperor.  Odoacer's  rule  in  Italy, 
however,  did  not  last  very  long,  for  it  was  interrupted  by  the 
marauding  expeditions  of  Theodoric  the  Goth,  who  after  invading 
the  Roman  provinces  of  Macedonia  and  Epirus  made  an  over- 
whelming descent  upon  Italy,  and  in  three  battles,  fought  in  489- 
490,  defeated  Odoacer.  The  latter  now  shut  himself  up  in 
Ravenna,  and  after  a  siege  of  two  years  he  surrendered  in  493,  and 
was  assassinated.  Until  526,  when  he  died,  the  Gothic  king 
governed  both  Goths  and  Romans.  The  fortunes  of  the  empire 
after  this  revived  under  Justinian,  perhaps  the  greatest  of  the 
Byzantine  emperors,  and  famed  for  the  notable  body  of  Roman 
law,  known  as  the  Justinian  Code,  which  he  was  instrumental 
in  compiling  and  enacting.  The  splendid  church  of  St.  Sophia,  at 
Constantinople,  moreover,  owes  its  origin  to  Justinian's  taste  and 
love  of  building.  Under  this  eminent  and  enlightened  ruler,  who 
reigned  between  the  years  527  and  565,  much  of  the  lost  territory 
of  the  Roman  dominion  was  recovered  by  his  great  general, 
Belisarius,  including  Sicily  and  the  whole  of  Italy,  the  southern 
parts  of  vSpain,  and  northern  Africa,  where  an  end  was  put  to  the 
Vandal  kingdom.  In  the  east,  Justinian  also  engaged  in  wars  with 
the  Persians,  in  which,  though  at  first  victorious,  as  at  the  great 
battle  at  Daras  (in  529)  he  afterwards  suffered  repeated  defeats, 
which  cost  much  money  and  the  humiliation  of  having  to  make 

53'2 


TURKISH    YOKE  553 

538-741    A.D. 

more  than  one  peace  with  Persia.  Later  on  in  the  century  and 
early  in  the  following  one  the  tables  were  terribly  turned,  how- 
ever, on  the  Persians.  After  they  had  ravaged  under  two  of  their 
kings,  aided  by  the  Avars,  Syria,  Palestine,  and  Egypt,  and  had 
captured  and  held  Constantinople  for  ten  years,  the  Persian  host 
were  annihilated  (622-628)  by  the  Emperor-General  Hera- 
clius,  so  that  the  Roman-Byzantine  power  won  back  all  that  had 
been  taken  from  it. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  southwest  of  the  empire  Northern  Italy 
was  conquered  by  tlie  Lombards,  a  German  race.  They  formed  a 
kingdom  there  in  538  under  Alboin,  which  afterwards  included 
portions  of  Central  Italy  and  even  some  districts  south  of  it.  This 
kingdom,  though  overthrown  by  Charlemagne  in  774,  to-day  still 
forms  the  region  of  Italy  called  Lombardy.  Other  foes  from  whom 
the  Byzantine  empire  suffered  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries 
were  the  Saracens,  a  predatory  Arab  tribe,  followers  of  Mohammed 
(570-632),  the  founder  of  Islam,  and  the  Slavs,  a  people  whose 
original  habitat  was  what  is  now  Bulgaria,  the  region  round  the 
lower  Danube.  About  the  same  era  Greece  came  to  be  the 
theater  of  invasion  of  the  Slavonic  states,  by  the  people  of  which 
the  country  was  first  overrun  and  ravaged,  and  then  occupied  and 
settled,  from  the  Peloponnesus  northward  through  the  kingdom  of 
Alacedonia,  Illyria,  and  the  Danube. 

At  this  period  the  East,  and  to  some  extent  the  West,  came 
under  the  domination  of  a  new  power — that  of  the  Saracens  or 
Arabs — and  with  their  appearance  also  arises  the  religion  of 
Mohammed,  the  prophet  and  reformer  of  Mecca.  Between  the 
Eastern  empire  and  this  Semitic  people,  under  the  caliphs  or  suc- 
cessors of  the  founder  of  Islam,  there  was  a  lengthened  period  of 
conflict,  in  which  the  provinces  of  Syria  and  Egypt  were  conquered 
by  the  Saracens,  and  the  cities  of  Alexandria,  Jerusalem,  and  An- 
tioch  were  lost  to  Byzantium.  Persia  also  fell  before  the  Saracenic 
invasion.  These  incursions  exended  from  632  to  651,  when 
Persia  became  a  ]\Iohammedan  country.  Later  on.  Northern  Africa, 
Spain,  and  the  southern  parts  of  Gaul  also  fell  before  their  conquer- 
ing arms,  together  with  several  of  the  Mediterranean  islands,  and 
Scinde,  on  the  western  borders  of  India.  Further,  the  city  of 
Constantine,  on  the  Bosphorus,  was  laid  siege  to  by  the  Saracens  in 
the  years  from  718  to  720,  but  was  saved  by  Leo  III.,  the  Isaurian, 
who  was  Byzantine  emperor  between  the  years  718  and  741.    Leo 


534>  GREECE 

774-814   A.D. 

III.  justly  gained  fame  for  inflicting  this  important  defeat  on  the 
Saracens  at  Constantinople,  and  for  driving  the  invaders  back  from 
the  Byzantine  capital.  He  is  also  noted  for  his  stern  opposition  to 
"  image-worship  "  in  the  contemporary  Eastern  church,  a  practice 
introduced  by  a  sect  at  this  period,  and  combated  by  what 
are  known  as  Iconoclasts.  It  has  to  be  said,  however,  that  in 
prohibiting  and  severely  repressing  image-worship,  which  Emperor 
Leo  deemed  idolatrous,  he  incensed  against  himself  the  Roman 
pontiffs  of  the  era — Popes  Gregory  II.  and  III. — and  in  conse- 
(juence  lost  to  the  Eastern  empire  much  of  its  hold  upon  Italy,  to- 
gether with  its  temporal  and  spiritual  authority  over  the  old  capital 
of  Rome. 

With  the  loss  of  what  hold  the  empire  still  had  upon  Italy, 
which  this  quarrel  between  the  popes  and  Leo  the  Isaurian  caused 
— for  the  Lombards,  as  we  have  seen,  had  conquered  its  northern 
portions — the  empire  of  the  East  was  narrowed  down  at  this  period 
to  Southern  Italy,  Greece,  Asia  Minor,  and  the  provinces  below 
the  Danube.  A  further  change  soon  came  about,  for  the  popes,  in 
their  strife  with  the  emperors  at  Constantinople,  called  for  aid  from 
the  Carlovingians,  a  dynasty  of  French  kings  of  German  origin. 
Under  King  Pepin,  son  of  Charles  Martel,  they  came  to  the  assist- 
ance of  the  popes  against  the  Lombards.  Under  Pepin's  son, 
Charles  the  Great  (Charlemagne,  as  he  was  usually  called),  the 
Lombard  kingdom  w-as  conquered  during  774,  and,  maintaining 
Prankish  rule  in  Italy,  he  became  nominal  head  of  the  Western 
empire.  This  assumption  of  lordship  was  authoritatively  brought 
about  and  emphasized  in  800,  when  the  Romans  of  Italy  chose 
Charlemagne  (Carolus  Magnus)  to  be  emperor,  and  he  was 
crowned  by  Leo  III.  at  St.  Peter's,  Rome,  emperor  of  the  Romans. 
The  consequence  of  ihis  act  was  the  final  and  official  division  of  the 
Eastern  or  Byzantine  empire,  which  in  name  at  least  had  been 
for  a  long  period  under  two  separate  emperors,  one  reigning  over 
the  West,  and  the  other  over  the  East,  but  which  was  now  con- 
fined to  the  Greek-speaking  peoples  of  Europe  and  Asia. 

Charles  the  Great's  chief  work  now,  besides  the  extirpation  of 
the  Avars  from  the  regions  about  the  Danube,  as  he  had  previously 
driven  the  Saracens  southward  to  the  Ebro,  was  the  creation  of 
his  mighty  Teutonic-Roman  empire.  After  his  death,  which  oc- 
curred in  the  year  814,  his  successors  could  not  keep  his  possessions 
together,  and  many  portions  of  them  began  to  crumble  away.    Ger- 


TURKISH   YOKE  535 

843-1204 

many,  however,  takes  its  rise  as  a  modern  nation  at  this  period 
(843  A.D.),  while  in  Gaul,  the  western  part  of  the  Carlovingian 
empire,  begin  the  foundations  of  modern  France.  In  Spain,  the 
kingdoms  of  Aragon,  Castile,  and  Leon  were  founded  in  the 
eleventh  century ;  while  the  Romance  languages,  with  their  different 
dialects,  now  began  to  arise  and  take  the  place  of  the  corrupt 
Latin,  then  the  vernacular  of  Italy,  Gaul,  and  Spain.  With  the 
rise  of  the  modern  nations  came  the  growth  of  the  papal  power 
and  its  interference,  ecclesiastically,  in  their  rulers'  affairs.  This 
attitude  of  the  occupants  of  the  Holy  See,  and  their  purpose  in 
seeking  to  put  the  spiritual  above  the  temporal  power  of  the  rulers 
of  the  era,  are  especially  seen  in  the  career  of  the  great  Hildebrand 
(Gregory  VII.),  though  his  assumption  deserves  less  credit  than 
the  work  he  did  in  a  benighted  age  as  a  reformer  of  the  abuses  of 
his  time.  The  period  is  marked  by  the  divergence  in  matters  of 
doctrine  between  the  Eastern  and  Western  churches,  especially 
after  the  church  took  to  evangelizing  and  missionary  work  among 
the  Northern  heathen. 

With  the  rise  of  the  modern  peoples  in  Northern  and  Western 
Europe  the  Normans  also  came  upon  the  scene.  When  the  Danes, 
the  Norse  sea-kings,  first  invaded  Britain  and  became  the  scourge 
of  the  land  the  Normans  had  left  Norway  to  settle  in  the  north 
of  France,  whence,  under  Duke  William,  they  soon  proceeded  to 
conquer  and  take  up  their  abode  in  England.  About  this  period 
the  same  peoples  carried  their  conquests  and  settlements  into  south- 
ern Italy,  established  themselves  securely  there  and  in  Sicily,  under 
Robert  and  Roger,  the  sons  of  Tancred.  Roger  assumed  the  title 
of  king  of  Sicily,  and  later  Robert  Guiscard  sacked  and  burned 
Rome,  attempted  the  conquest  of  the  Byzantine  empire,  and  with 
his  fleet  ravaged  Greece. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  the  Crusades 
were  launched  against  Mohammedan  dominion  in  the  East,  the 
movement  having  especially  for  its  design  the  liberation  of  the 
Holy  Land  from  the  infidel  and  the  establishment  of  a  Christian 
kingdom  in  Palestine.  The  fourth  Crusade  (from  1202-04),  in- 
stead of  pursuing  the  objects  which  had  called  it  into  knightly  and 
religious  action,  turned  against  the  city  of  Constantinople,  then 
torn  by  dissension,  captured  it,  and  set  up  the  Latin  empire  under 
Baldwin,  Count  of  Flanders,  with  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman 
church.      The  Eastern  or  Byzantine  empire  now  came  to  an  end 


536  G  K  E  E  C  E 

1205-1461 

or,  more  correctly,  was  broken  into  small,  separate  fragments,  for 
it  was  later  on  re-established.  Latin  (French  and  Italian)  king- 
doms were  here  and  there  now  set  up ;  while  Prankish  governments 
ruled  in  Greece,  one  of  which,  the  dukedom  of  Athens,  lasting 
from  1205  to  1456.  Similarly  the  Venetians  also  invaded  Greece, 
and  possessed  themselves  of  many  important  and  prosperous  places, 
such  as  Crete,  Euboea,  and  Corfu,  while  in  the  Cyclades  the  Italian 
duchy  of  Naxos  was  formed.  The  Morea  was  about  this  period 
recovered  by  the  Byzantines,  and  the  knightly  order  of  St.  John 
occupied  the  island  of  Rhodes.  The  principality  of  Achaia  was 
meanwhile  formed  under  the  French  knight  William  de  Cham- 
ylitte,  with  the  aid  of  Geoffrey  de  Villehardouin.  In  the  latter 
and  his  family  it  possessed  vigorous  rulers,  until  set  aside  by  the 
Neapolitan  dynasty  of  Anjou,  which  usurped  dominion  over  the 
principality  until  it  and  all  Greece  were  engulfed  in  the  piracies  and 
ravages  of  the  Mohammedan  power — the  Ottoman  Turks — who 
besieged  and  stormed  Constantinople,  and  made  it  their  capital 
in  1453.  Three  years  later  Athens  came  into  the  possession  of  and 
was  occupied  by  the  Turks,  under  Mohammed  II.,  when  its  duchy 
was  abohshed,  and  the  Parthenon  was  turned  into  a  mosque. 

The  Greek  or  Byzantine  empire  was  broken  up  on  the  fall  of 
Constantinople  during  the  fourth  Crusade  (in  1200),  aided  by 
the  Venetians,  an  enterprising  maritime  and  commercial  people  who 
came  to  the  forefront  of  European  history  at  this  period,  and  who 
for  a  time  made  their  force  felt  in  the  Mediterranean,  especially  in 
the  contests  with  the  Turkish  or  Ottoman  power.  Though  Constan- 
tinople was  recovered  and  the  empire  established  again  in  1261  by 
the  Emperor  Michael  Paloeologus,  it  was  shorn  of  much  of  its  for- 
mer dominion  and  glory.  Many  portions  of  it  fell  to  the  Moham- 
medans, and  the  new  power  of  Venice  fastened  upon  its  coasts  and 
many  of  its  islands  in  the  Mediterranean ;  while  independent  Greek 
empires  rose  and  flourished  for  a  time  in  Nicaea,  and  in  Trebizond, 
until  swallowed  up,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  by  the  conquests  of  the 
Turks.  The  Greek  empire  of  Nicaea,  though  small  at  first, 
rapidly  widened  and  became  important  enough  to  have  the  imperial 
crown  bestowed  upon  its  emperors  until  the  year  1261  when  it  was 
merged  in  the  empire  at  Constantinople.  During  its  existence  it 
had  the  rivalry  both  of  Constantinople  and  Trebizond,  but  was 
strong  enough  not  only  to  hold  out  for  a  time  against  them,  but  to 
rescue  the  provinces    from   national   and   foreign   usurpers.       The 


TURKISH   YOKE  537 

1281-1571 

Trebizond  empire,  which  existed  from  1204  to  1461.  when  it 
was  reduced  to  a  Turkish  province,  was  ruled  by  members  of  the 
Comnenus  family,  whose  heads  claimed  the  title  and  rank  of 
Roman  emperors.  It  lived  longer  than  its  rival  empire,  Nicaea, 
partly  by  paying  tribute  for  a  time  to  the  Turkish  Sultan  and 
owning  vassalage  to  him.  During  1280,  however,  it  gained  its 
independence,  and  for  nearly  a  century  afterwards  was  a  pros- 
perous commercial  power,  until  obliged  again  to  pay  tribute,  this 
time  to  the  [Mongol  conqueror  Timour.  Not  until  1461,  did  it 
too  succumb  to  an  adverse  fate,  falling  before  the  Ottoman 
Mohammed  II.  in  the  conquest  of  Constantinople. 

Greece  itself,  meanwhile,  was  under  the  oppression  of  the  Mo- 
hammedan power,  which,  since  the  destruction  of  the  Seljuk  Turks 
by  the  Aloguls,  now  came  under  the  more  famous  Turkish  dominion 
of  the  Ottoman  sultans.  Following  upon  the  fall  of  Constantinople, 
Mohammed  II.  conquered  the  Peloponnesus  (the  Morea)  and 
the  greater  part  of  Greece.  It  was  against  this  Turkish  power  that 
the  Venetians,  at  this  time  contesting  the  supremacy  in  the  Medi- 
terranean with  the  Genoese,  did  battle,  defending  Christendom 
against  them.  ]\Iany  Greek  cities  suffered  severely  from  the 
infidel,  especially  noble  Corinth,  which  in  1445  was  given  to  the 
flames  and  its  inhabitants,  to  the  number  of  60,000,  were  carried 
into  slavery  in  Asia,  when  Amurath  II.  (Murad)  invaded  and 
subdued  the  Peloponnesus.  Under  the  son  of  this  sultan,  Mo- 
hammed II.,  much  of  Europe  fell  woefully  into  Turkish  power.  In 
this  humiliation  Greece  was  also  a  heavy  sufferer,  her  coasts 
being  ravaged  by  the  Turks;  while  by  the  year  1460  not  a 
little  of  the  interior  fell  into  their  hands.  The  empire  of  Trebizond, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  conquered  by  Islam  in  146 1,  with  the 
island  of  Lesbos  (Mitylene)  in  the  following  year.  Euboea,  the 
largest  island  of  Greece  in  the  Aegean,  was  taken  in  1471. 
Others  of  its  possessions  were  in  part  held  by  Venice,  together  with 
Crete  and  Corfu;  while  still  other  portions  remained  in  the  power 
of  Prankish  princes. 

The  Turkish  wars  with  Persia  extended  through  most  of  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  varied  at  periods  by  treaties  of 
peace  and  again  by  bitter  strife.  In  1571  the  tide  began 
to  turn  against  the  Turks,  for  in  that  year  a  great  naval  vic- 
tory was  won  over  them,  near  the  Greek  town  of  Lepanto,  by  the 
combined  fleets  of  Italy  and  Spain,  under  Don  John  of  Austria. 


538  GREECE 

1204-1669 

After  this  in  wars  in  Hungary  and  Croatia,  in  Poland,  and  in  Persia, 
the  Ottomans  were  uniformly  victorious,  and  as  uniformly  ruth- 
lessly cruel.  About  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  Turks, 
in  their  wars  with  the  Venetian  republic,  threatened  the  island  of 
Crete,  which  by  concession  had  in  1204  become  the  possession  of 
Venice.  Though  for  the  next  twenty-five  years  this  island  was 
stoutly  defended  by  the  republic,  with  the  aid  of  volunteers  from 
Western  Europe,  it  was  finally  wrested  from  it  by  the  Turks.  In 
the  struggle  for  the  possession  of  Crete,  Greece  unfortunately  gave 
her  sympathy  to  the  Turks,  and  in  consequence  was  frequently  in- 
vaded and  plundered  by  the  Venetian  galleys,  as  well  as  by  Chris- 
tian corsairs  in  the  Levant.  On  one  occasion  the  Morea  was 
denuded  by  the  Venetians  of  5000  of  its  people,  who  were 
carried  off  as  slaves.  The  conquest  of  Crete,  which  was  com- 
pleted by  the  year  1669,  was  a  serious  loss  to  Greece,  since  that 
island  was  within  the  scope  of  lier  territory  and  had  been  a  part  of 
the  Byzantine  empire.  That  victory  rested  with  the  Turks  was  in 
part  due,  as  has  been  said,  to  the  side  taken  by  Greece  against 
Venice,  and  shov^^s  how  denationalized  and  spiritless  the  Greeks  had 
now  become.  In  this  domination  of  the  Turk,  Europe  was,  how- 
ever, the  gainer  in  one  particular,  for  after  the  Ottoman  capture  of 
Constantinople  Greek  scholars  took  flight  from  the  intellectual  seat 
of  empire  on  the  Bosphorus  and  disseminated  their  culture  and 
learning-  over  the  West. 

But  Europe  was  a  gainer  in  other  ways  and  from  other  cir- 
cumstances, for  we  part  now  from  its  medieval  and  reach  the  era 
of  its  modern  aspects,  influenced  by  the  discovery  of  the  New  World 
and  by  the  spirit  of  enterprise  and  adventure  in  other  lands,  as  well 
as  by  the  intellectual  progress  of  the  European  nations  and  the 
freedom  given  to  men's  energies,  writings,  and  thoughts.  The 
former  was  helped  by  the  settlement  of  the  nations  and  their 
progress  in  the  ways  of  peace,  as  well  as  by  those  of  expanding 
commerce  and  industry,  and  more  especially  by  their  development 
in  constitutional  government.  The  latter  particularly  manifested 
itself  in  the  period  of  the  Renaissance,  which  now  had  set  in, 
and  in  the  revolt  from  superstition  and  barbarism,  though  the  old 
idolaters  lingered  long  among  the  "  pagans  "  or  villagers.  It  was 
further  aided  by  the  general  spread  of  Christianity,  which  was  soon 
to  reach  the  important  era  of  the  Reformation.  The  age  of  vio- 
lence and  tyranny  was  now  fast  passing:   and  one  of  public  rights, 


TURKISH   YOKE  639 

1453-1821 

with  mental  and  moral  freedom  and  liberal  ideas,  was  about  to 
begin.  Over  much  of  the  East  darkness  still  lowered,  and  was 
destined  to  continue  for  many  years;  but,  even  there,  there  were 
gleams  of  light  and  the  prospective  coming  of  a  better  day;  while 
in  the  West  the  better  day  had  already  dawned,  and  hope  kindled 
at  the  prospect  of  a  more  progressive  and  more  happy  time. 

That  Greece  under  the  Moslem  yoke  had  had  a  checkered  his- 
tory was  probably  due  to  the  lack  of  national  aspiration.  Her  peo- 
ple seem  to  have  bowed  their  necks  to  every  succeeding  conqueror. 
Hence  their  succumbing  before  Saracen  and  Turk,  and  even  before 
Franks,  Spaniards,  and  Venetians.  After  the  fall  of  Constanti- 
nople and  the  annihilation  of  the  Byzantine  empire  by  the  Turks 
in  1453,  the  subjugation  of  Greece  quickly  followed;  the 
Frankish  duchy  of  Athens  was  abolished  and  the  Parthenon 
at  Athens  was  degraded  to  the  services  of  a  Turkish  mosque. 
Euboea,  in  1470,  was  taken  from  the  Venetians  by  the  Otto- 
man Turks,  while  the  Cyclades,  at  the  period  an  Italian  princi- 
pality, were  absorbed  by  them  in  1566,  and  a  century  later  Venice 
lost  Crete.  Once  more  the  tide  turned  for  a  time  in  favor  of  the 
Venetians,  who,  under  their  distinguished  general,  Francesco 
Morosini,  regained  rule  in  the  Peloponnesus  in  1687  a.d.  At  this 
time  Athens  was  devastated  by  a  Venetian  bombardment  and  the 
beautiful  Parthenon  was  partly  destroyed.  By  the  peace  of  Carlo- 
witz,  in  1699,  the  allied  powers  of  Austria,  Russia,  Poland,  and 
Venice  forced  Turkey  to  relinquish  the  Morea  to  the  Venetians, 
which  they  retained  until  up  to  171 5,  when  the  Turks  once  more 
recovered  rule  in  the  Greek  peninsula.  Three  years  later  the 
Turks  regained  the  whole  of  Greece  and  kept  it  for  a  century 
further,  until  the  War  of  Liberation,  in  1821. 

This  Turkish  hold  upon  Greece  was  maintained  in  spite  of 
Russian  sympathy  for  the  Greeks  and  the  efforts  of  the  Muscovite 
power  practically  to  aid  them.  One  reason  of  Russian  failure  to 
interest  the  Greeks  in  effecting  their  emancipation  was  partly  fear 
of  that  Northern  power  and  its  ambitions,  which  sought  to  add 
Greece  to  its  already  extensive  dominions,  as  well  as  to  make  the 
Greek  people  Russian  subjects ;  another  reason  was  the  fear  of  so 
eminently  warlike  a  race  as  were  the  Ottoman  Turks,  into  whose 
service  many  enterprising  though  unpatriotic  Greeks  had  entered, 
and  had  even  embraced  Mohammedanism.  Greece  suffered  in  its 
long  period  of  national  self-effacement,  and  especially  during  the 


540  GREECE 

1453-1821 

earlier  and  later  periods  of  Turkish  domination.  The  prominent 
fact  in  Greek  history  during  these  ages  is  the  disappearance  and 
seeming  destruction  of  the  nation.  Whoever  might  hold  the  su- 
preme power  in  Greece,  the  Greeks  were  sure  to  be  the  sufferers. 
When  the  Turks  spread  their  conquests  from  Constantinople  on  to 
the  rest  of  the  empire,  the  capture  of  each  city  was  followed  by  the 
slaughter  of  all  able-bodied  men  and  the  carrying  off  of  the  women 
and  children  to  the  harem  or  slave-market.  And  the  Western 
Christians  were  no  more  tender  than  the  Ottomans.  The  Greeks 
because  they  did  not  acknowledge  the  Pope,  were  the  object  of 
special  vengeance  on  tlie  part  of  the  Venetians  and  in  the  island  of 
Crete  suffered  the  most  abominable  barbarities.  The  Turks  pun- 
ished the  Greeks  because  they  submitted  to  the  Venetians,  and  the 
Venetians  punished  them  because  they  submitted  to  the  Turks. 
Moreover,  the  Aegean  was  infested  by  pirates,  who,  whether  Turks, 
Italians,  or  Greeks,  had  no  mercy  on  the  peaceful  inhabitants  of  the 
mainland.  Human  life  was  disregarded,  and  men  and  women  were 
of  value  only  as  salable  articles  in  the  slave-market.  The  utter 
destruction  or  transference  of  the  Greek  population  presents  a  pic- 
ture of  terrible  sufferings.  Add  to  this  the  destruction  of  vast 
masses  and  the  removal  of  Greek  people  to  Italy  or  Sicily  or  some 
other  place  of  refuge.  Almost  all  the  famous  families  that  ruled  the 
islands  of  the  Aegean  escaped  from  them  when  they  were  attacked 
by  the  Turks.  The  Knights  of  St.  John  left  Rhodes  to  find  a  final 
settlement  in  Malta.  Among  the  number  who  thus  left  their  native 
land  were  nearly  all  the  learned  men,  who  sought  in  the  West  a 
refuge  from  Turkish  rule,  and  opportunities  for  the  pursuit  of 
learning. 

This  learning  was  taken  up,  however,  only  by  the  emigrating 
Greek,  who  found  in  the  West  not  only  the  peace  necessary  to 
pursue  letters,  but  conditions  favorable  to  the  prosecution  of 
studies.  They  were  encouraged  by  the  interest  in  the  noble  lit- 
erature of  Greece,  manifested  by  the  educated  peoples  with  whom 
these  scholarly  emigrants  found  an  asylum,  and  they  carried  v/ith 
them  the  strong  Greek  love  of  culture.  In  Greece  itself,  it  ought 
to  be  said,  however,  that  though  the  people,  distracted  and  menaced 
as  they  ever  were  by  foreign  oppressors,  did  little  or  nothing  to  re- 
vive Greek  independence,  save  with  outside  aid,  there  were  still  por- 
tions of  the  inhabitants  who  fretted  under  their  bondage  and  held 
aloof,  so  far  as  possible,  from  their  conquerors.    ]\Iany  Greeks,  more- 


A     SILIOTE    AXl)    TIKKISTT     POLniER    IX     MORTAL    COMnAT    0\     TTIF.    V.UCK 

OF   A    PRFXIPICE 

P:ihif!ng  by   R.   Caton    lyooiliille 


TURKISH    YOKE  541 

1803-1822 

over,  maintained  their  independence  as  pirates  in  the  Aegean,  while 
there  were  others  whose  spirits  were  not  utterly  broken  by  the  humil- 
iating plight  of  their  country.  Though  combined  action  among  them- 
selves was  under  the  circumstances  of  their  condition  almost  im- 
possible, these  elements  of  the  people  longed  once  more  for  freedom, 
and  eagerly  scanned  the  signs  of  the  times  for  a  chance  to  recover 
their  independent  nationality.  Among  the  Suliotes,  a  Graeco-Al- 
banian  patriarchal  tribe  inhabiting  the  mountainous  districts  of 
Albania,  this  feeling  for  Greek  independence  showed  itself  towards 
the  close  of  the  eighteenth  and  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
turies, especially  in  resistance  to  Ali  Pasha,  the  Turkish  vizier  of 
Janina.  This  tyrant,  who  subdued  the  Suliotes  in  1803,  sought  to 
make  himself  an  independent  ruler  in  his  pashalic,  and  with  that 
object  intrigued  with  Russia,  France,  and  Great  Britain  against 
Turkey,  but  was  relieved  of  his  office  and  assassinated  by  the  Turks. 
The  Suliotes  meanwhile  continued  their  resistance  to  Ottoman  rule, 
and  in  1822  they  were  removed  from  Suli  to  Greece,  where  they 
took  a  heroic  part  in  the  War  of  Greek  Independence. 

The  impulse  towards  revived  nationality  was  aided  by  the 
now  widespread  impatience  with  wrongdoing,  by  the  spirit  of  free- 
dom abroad  among  the  nations,  and  by  the  ideas  which  gave  rise 
to  that  eventful  catastrophe,  the  French  Revolution.  Secret  so- 
cieties in  Greece,  moreover,  added  to  the  ferment  within  its  borders, 
particularly  through  the  medium  of  the  secret  national  league,  the 
lletaeria  Philike,  which  was  founded  in  1814.  The  movement  for 
Grecian  liberation  was  further  aided  by  the  intrigues  of  Russia, 
and  the  abortive  efforts  of  Prince  Alexander  Ypsilanti,  an  officer  in 
the  Russian  service.  In  1821  he  raised  the  standard  of  rebellion  in 
Moldavia,  and  at  the  same  time  a  revolt  also  broke  out  in  the  Morea. 


Chapter  XLVIII 

THE    WAR    OF    INDEPENDENCE,   1821-1829 


1 


■^HE  strug-g-le  of  the  Greeks  for  national  life  and  independ- 
ence was  a  lengthy,  pitiful,  but  heroic  one,  happily  aided 
after  a  time  by  the  interference  of  humane  European  gov- 
ernments. The  gallant  efforts  of  the  Greeks  were  exerted  against 
an  oppressive  and  enslaving  power  now  on  the  wane  and  growing 
weak,  while  the  Greeks  and  the  Christian  nations  that  assisted  them 
had  become  both  merciful  and  strong.  Though  Ypsilanti's  rising  in 
Moldavia  did  not  meet  with  success,  the  revolt  in  the  Peloponnesus 
bore  fruit,  and  ere  long  extended  to  the  islands  of  the  Aegean,  par- 
ticularly to  Hydra  and  Spezia,  and  was  joined  in  by  northern 
and  central  Greece,  as  well  as  by  Athens,  the  latter's  chief  city  and 
capital.  With  the  co-operation  of  the  Greek  islands,  the  Greeks 
gained  the  valuable  aid  of  a  well-manned  fleet,  with  the  auxiliary  of 
their  dreaded  fire-ships,  and  soon  carried  consternation  among  the 
Turks  and  brought  disaster  to  their  navy.  Later  on  the  Greek  rising 
gained  the  sympathy  and  active  aid  not  only  of  Russia,  the  Greeks' 
co-religionist,  and  of  France,  but  also  of  Great  Britain,  under  Can- 
ning, its  secretary  for  foreign  affairs  and  later  its  premier.  To  this 
was  added  the  support  of  a  number  of  Philhellenes,  including  the 
poet  Byron,  who  contributed  his  money  and  sacrificed  his  life  to  the 
Greek  cause  at  Missolonghi.  For  years  the  struggle  was  carried  on 
single-handed,  amid  many  discouragements  and  woeful  loss  of  life, 
and  the  historic  country  became  the  theater  of  the  most  direful 
atrocities  and  was  given  over  to  Turkish  rapine  and  lust  of  blood. 

The  contest  entered  upon  by  the  Greeks  was  a  bold  as  well  as 
patriotic  one,  for  they  were  unequally  matched  against  the  Turks. 
The  Ottoman  empire  put  in  the  field  army  after  army  against  the 
little  nation — a  nation  composed  at  that  period  of  not  more  than 
900,000.  The  struggle  was  all  the  more  heroic  on  the  part  of  the 
Greeks  since  not  only  were  they  immensely  inferior  in  numbers  to 
the  Turks — then  a  people  of  twenty-five  millions — but  were  also 
without  money  or  the  resources  of  war.    They  had  no  fortresses  or 

£49 


INDEPENDENCE  543 

1821 

garrisons,  as  places  of  refuge  and  defense ;  and  at  the  outset  of  the 
war  and  for  long  afterwards  had  no  allies  or  helpful  power  to  back 
them.  The  Turks,  on  the  other  hand,  though  weaker  than  they 
had  been  before  their  war  with  Russia  and  Austria,  were  yet  a 
formidable  as  well  as  a  fanatical  and  merciless  power,  and  were  able 
later  on  in  the  struggle  to  call  on  Mohammed  Ali,  Pasha  of  Egypt, 
for  assistance,  which  he  was  able  efifectively  to  give  them  with 
a  finely  disciplined  army,  under  his  son  Ibrahim.  This  assist- 
ance but  for  European  intervention  would  have  been  utterly 
and  disastrously  fatal  to  the  Greeks.  More  than  this,  Egypt 
brought  to  Turkish  aid  in  the  strife  a  considerable  navy — twelve 
frigates  and  two  eighty-four-gun  ships — in  addition  to  the  vessels 
the  Turks  sent  from  Constantinople,  besides  a  large  transport  fleet 
in  which  to  conduct  the  Egyptian  reinforcements  to  various  ports 
on  the  Greek  coast.  In  spite  of  this  aid  received  by  the  Sultan,  and 
the  inequality  of  fighting  resource  between  the  Mussulmans  and 
the  people  of  Greece,  the  Greeks  entered  vigorously  and  enthusias- 
tically on  the  struggle  for  independence,  aided  ere  long  by  loans 
of  money  raised  in  England,  at  usurious  rates  of  interest,  and  by 
such  sympathy  as  was  extended  to  them  by  the  Christian  nations  of 
Europe. 

When  the  war  began,  not  only  Greece,  but  Ser\'ia  and  Mon- 
tenegro and  many  of  the  Turkish  pashalics  vvcre  in  revolt  against 
the  Sultan.  In  many  instances  this  brought  upon  the  Greeks 
and  their  neighboring  Christian  allies  dire  punishment  and  the 
crudest  massacres.  The  Danubian  principalities  of  Wallachia  and 
Moldavia  had  raised  the  standard  of  the  Cross,  and  the  peoples  of 
the  islands  in  the  Aegean  turned  their  mercantile  vessels  into  those  of 
corsairs  to  prey  upon  the  Turk.  Soon  all  Greece  and  the  regions  to 
the  north  and  northeast  of  it  were  in  arms :  6000  Greeks  banded 
themselves  together  in  Thessaly,  while  many  mountaineers  rose  in 
jMacedonia,  and  30,000  took  up  arms  in  Salonica  and  laid  siege  to  its 
capital,  but  were  repulsed  and  had  to  flee  to  the  mountains.  Mean- 
while news  of  the  risings  had  reached  Constantinople,  wdiere  the 
excitement  among  the  Christians  was  great,  though  it  brought  a 
terrible  reckoning  from  the  Turks,  who  butchered  them  by  thou- 
sands, even  entering  the  Greek  churches  and  slaying  their  bishops 
and  clergy.  In  Asia  i\Iinor,  at  Smyrna,  and  in  Cyprus  the  massa- 
cres were  peculiarly  atrocious  and  added  to  the  general  hatred  and 
loathing  of  the  Turks.     Ypsilanti  was  defeated  at  Dragaschan,  and 


5U  GREECE 

1821-1825 

had  to  take  to  flight ;  while  in  the  peninsula  the  Greeks  lost  Athens, 
and  15,000  of  them  perished  at  Patras.  In  Salonica,  3000  were 
butchered  by  Turkish  scimitars,  and  nearly  10,000  women  and  chil- 
dren were  sold  as  slaves.  Still  the  Greeks  wrought  havoc  by  their 
fleet  in  the  Aegean,  while  on  the  mainland  they  hoisted  their  flag  at 
Missolonghi  and  fortified  it,  took  Navarino  and  Napola  de  Mal- 
vasia  and  repulsed  many  thousand  Ottomans  at  Valezza.  At  the 
siege  of  Tripolitza,  in  the  Peloponnesus,  where  the  Greek  patriot 
Kolokotronis  was  in  command,  the  Turkish  fortress  fell  and  many 
thousand  Turks  were  ruthlessly  slain,  neither  sex  nor  age  being 
respected.  With  these  successes  and  losses  the  first  year  of  the 
war  closed  in  1821,  independence  was  declared  and  a  constitutional 
government  set  up  under  the  Greek  general  and  statesman,  Alex- 
der  Mavrokordatos. 

In  the  following  year  occurred  the  Turkish  massacre  on  the 
island  of  Chios  (Scio),  an  atrocity  without  parallel  during  the  war, 
which  cost  the  lives  of  30,000  Greeks  and  the  loss  of  all  their 
homes.  Nearly  50,000  women  and  children  were  abducted  as 
slaves  for  the  Costantinople  and  Alexandria  harems.  The  massa- 
cre w'as  partly  avenged  by  the  Greek  fleet,  under  Admirals  Andreas 
Aliauh's  and  Constantine  Canaris,  who,  with  their  fire-ships,  burned 
the  flagship  of  the  Turkish  admiral  and  destroyed  many  ships  of 
the  squadron.  For  a  time  the  fighting  was  very  desultory  on  both 
sides,  if  we  except  the  gallant  defense  by  the  Greeks  of  Missolonghi, 
under  Marco  Bozzaris,  which  cost  the  Turks  nearly  12,000  lives,  al- 
though later,  in  1826.  the  town  again  fell  into  their  hands  and  those 
of  their  Egyptian  allies.  Another  success  was  achieved  by  the 
Greeks,  in  the  assault  and  capture  of  Napoli  di  Romania  by  Kolo- 
kotronis, and  many  hundred  cannon,  with  much  ammunition,  came 
at  the  same  time  into  the  hands  of  the  victors. 

In  the  campaign  of  1825,  the  Turks  were  aided  by  the  Egyp- 
tian forces,  now  co-operating  with  them,  and  together  they  launched 
a  great  expedition,  military  and  naval,  against  the  Greeks.  In 
spite  of  dissensions  among  the  insurgents,  w^ho  were  also  weakened 
greatly  by  the  continued  strain  of  the  war,  the  Turks  had  few  gains 
to  record  during  the  year.  The  Greeks  at  this  period  were 
enabled  to  pay  their  sailors  and  troops  by  the  expedient  of  a  loan 
in  the  London  money  market,  which  they  were  able  to  effect,  but 
Corinth  and  Athens  had  meanwhile  fallen  before  Turkish  assault, 
and  in  the  year  1826  Missolonghi,  after  a  prolonged  siege  and  a 


INDEPENDENCE  545 

1826-1829 

heroic  defense  by  the  Greeks,  succumbed  to  Its  besiegers, 
under  Reschid  Pasha.  With  its  fall  the  Greeks  lost  nearly  10,000 
men  in  killed,  wounded,  and  prisoners.  This  disaster,  however, 
brought  relief  to  the  much-enduring  Greeks  by  stimulating  the  inter- 
vention of  England,  in  which  she  was  joined  by  Russia,  now  under 
Czar  Nicholas.  Public  sentiment  in  both  these  nations  was  now 
so  strong  for  interference  that  an  understanding  was  come  to 
between  them  to  put  an  end  to  the  war,  and  in  this  deci- 
sion they  were  at  once  joined  by  France.  Overtures  for  peace 
were  made  to  the  Sultan  by  the  allies,  to  which,  however, 
he  would  not  listen,  and  orders  were  then  given  by  the  combined 
powers  to  their  respective  fleets  to  prevent  further  depredations  on 
the  Greek  coasts  by  the  Turks,  who  were  about  to  renew  their 
attacks  on  the  Morea.  With  these  instructions  the  allied  fleets 
entered  the  port  of  Navarino,  where  the  Turkish  and  Egyptian 
ships  were  at  anchor.  The  allied  admirals  were  ordered  not 
to  precipitate  a  fight,  but  to  hold  off  for  a  parley.  When  nego- 
tiations were  about  to  open,  an  accidental  shot  from  a  Turkish 
vessel  brought  on  a  general  action,  the  result  of  which  was  the  an- 
nihilation on  October  20,  1827,  of  the  entire  Turko-Egyptian  navy. 
This  victory,  under  Admiral  Codrington,  settled  the  fate  of  Greece 
and  ultimately  gave  her  her  freedom.  It  at  the  same  time  definitely 
settled  the  question  of  mediation,  for  the  allied  powers  then  with- 
drew their  ambassadors  from  Constantinople,  and  the  following 
year  saw  the  outbreak  of  the  Russo-Turkish  war.  The  Greeks, 
under  the  protection  of  the  allied  powers,  established  a  government 
at  Athens  and  elected  Capo  dTstrias  as  president.  For  two  years 
longer  the  Turks  remained  in  possession  of  the  Greek  fortresses,  but 
were  forced  by  French  troops  to  withdraw,  and  were  afterwards 
driven  out  of  the  Morea.  Finally,  by  the  treaty  of  Adrianople 
(September,  1829),  the  Porte  acknowledged  the  independence  of 
Greece;  and  in  the  following  year,  at  a  conference  of  the  allied 
powers  in  London,  the  extent  of  the  new  kingdom  was  arranged  and 
Greece  took  its  place  among  the  nations. 


Chapter  XLIX 

THE  PRESENT  KINGDOM,   1829-1910 

MEANWHILE  the  allied  powers  had  not  been  able  to  secure 
a  prince  to  accept  the  throne  of  Greece  until  their  choice 
finally  fell  upon  Otho,  the  second  son  of  King  Louis  of 
Bavaria.  This  selection  was  ratified  by  the  Greek  National  Assem- 
bly, and  the  youthful  prince — he  was  not  then  of  age — arrived  in 
Feburary,  1833,  at  Nauplia,  then  the  seat  of  the  Hellenic  govern- 
ment. For  the  next  two  years  the  country  was  under  a  regency,  at 
the  expiration  of  which  Otho  assumed  the  reigns  of  govern- 
ment and  transferred  the  capital  to  Athens.  Under  King  Otho, 
Greece  was  ruled  without  a  constitution,  but  in  1843  one  was 
demanded  from  the  young  monarch  by  the  united  voice  of  the 
army  and  the  people.  A  constitution  was  formulated  and  under 
this  instrument  the  royal  executive  government  was  adminis- 
tered for  twenty  years,  when  a  reaction  against  the  king  set  in 
and  the  provisional  government  declared  the  throne  vacant. 
Bowing  to  this  decision  of  the  nation,  Otho  and  his  queen  pro- 
ceeded on  board  a  British  man-of-war,  which  took  them  to 
Bavaria.  Later,  the  provisional  government  ordered  the  election, 
by  universal  suffrage,  of  a  new  constitutional  king,  the  result  of 
w^hich  was  the  choice  of  Prince  Alfred,  second  son  of  Queen  Vic- 
toria of  England.  As,  however,  there  were  reasons  which  prevented 
a  prince  of  any  of  the  families  of  the  protecting  powers  from  accept- 
ing the  crown  of  Greece,  the  choice  was  without  effect.  Meanwhile, 
by  joint  protocol  of  the  allied  powers,  the  throne  was  again  declared 
vacant,  and  by  a  later  protocol  (June,  1863),  an  offer  was  made  of 
it  to  Prince  George  of  Denmark,  second  son  of  King  Christian  IX. 
and  a  brotlier  of  Alexandra,  the  present  Queen  of  England.  By  him 
the  throne  was  accepted,  the  national  assembly  of  Greece  mean- 
while ratifying  the  proceedings,  the  more  readily  as  the  Ionian 
Islands,  then  under  the  protectorate  of  Britain,  were  surrendered  to 
Greece  and  incorporated  in  the  kingdom.  At  a  later  time  Greece 
gained  a  further  increase  of  territory,  by  the  action  of  Turkey  in 
giving  up  Arta  in  Epirus  and  the  larger  part  of  Thessaly. 

546 


PRESENT     KINGDOM  647 

1864-1867 

Since  her  liberation  from  bondage  to  Turkey  Greece  has  done 
what  she  could  to  assume  a  suitable  place  among  the  nations,  al- 
though with  a  limited  territory,  shut  in  by  a  faulty  frontier,  and  a 
small  population  (to-day  only  two  and  a  half  millions).  Almost 
three  times  as  many  Greeks  are  to  be  found  in  the  Ottoman  empire 
and  tributary  states  and  other  adjacent  provinces  or  protectorates. 
But  her  people  have  not  the  qualities  to  reinstate  the  nation  in 
anything  like  its  ancient  eminence;  her  public  men  have  in  nowise 
distinguished  themselves;  while  in  finance  she  has  cut  a  rather  sorry 
figure,  with  a  heavy  debt,  which  she  makes  no  adequate  provision 
to  reduce  or  liquidate,  and  a  customs  administration  which  is  notor- 
iously loose  and  faulty.  The  taxes  are  indifferently  and  unfairly 
collected  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  country  is  really  rich 
enough  to  pay  its  way  honorably  and  with  credit  to  itself.  Although 
possessed  of  a  productive  agricultural  country,  with  large  herds  of 
cattle,  much  of  the  soil  is  left  in  its  virgin  state,  and  what  is  tilled,  if 
we  except  the  estates  of  the  large  vine-growing  companies,  is  done  in 
an  obsolete  and  slipshod  fashion.  With  improved  methods  in  this 
respect,  including  an  extended  area  of  irrigation,  many  sections  of 
the  country  could  be  made  to  yield  magnificently,  and  the  profitable 
grape  culture  might  be  more  largely  increased.  As  yet  Greece 
has  but  few  manufactures,  which,  if  established,  her  extent  of 
timber  lands,  abundance  of  minerals,  and  possibilities  in  the  way 
of  silk  culture  might  easily  encourage,  and  thus  materially  add  to 
her  wealth  and  income. 

Meanwhile,  rather  foolishly  the  risen  nation  aims  at  military 
conquest,  reannexing  of  peoples  ethnologically  her  kin,  and  the  re- 
covery of  historic  lands  once  her  own.  But  for  these  ventures  she 
lacks  at  once  the  means  and  the  skilled  generalship  in  her  army  to 
give  her  success.  In  time,  with  attention  to  the  development  of  her 
own  internal  resources  and  to  raising  the  national  standing  and 
character  of  her  people,  she  might,  in  any  future  rearrangement  of 
the  "  Sick  Man's  "  dominions,  profit  considerably — provided  that 
the  struggle  among  the  European  powers  for  large  slices  of  Turkish 
territory,  in  any  reapportionment  arising  out  of  what  is  diplomat- 
ically known  as  "  the  Eastern  Question,"  leaves  some  chance  for  so 
small  and  comparatively  unimportant  a  nation  as  Greece. 

Over  this  modern  kingdom  of  Hellas  King  George  of  Denmark 
rules.  In  1867  he  took  for  his  queen  Olga,  daughter  of  the  Grand 
Duke  Constantine  of  Russia,  brother  of  the  late  Emperor  Alexander 


548  GREECE 

1864-1910 

II.  Of  King  George's  six  children,  the  eldest  son,  and  the  heir- 
apparent,  is  Prince  Konstantinos,  Duke  of  Sparta,  born  in  1868, 
who  married  in  1889  Princess  Sophia  of  Prussia,  sister  of  the 
Emperor  of  Germany. 

In  1 88 1,  by  constraint  of  the  guardian  powers,  Turkey  ceded 
the  greater  part  of  Thessaly  to  Greece.  This  was  a  welcome  acces- 
sion of  her  ancient  territory.  Meanwhile,  troubles  in  Crete,  which 
though  subjugated  by  Turkey  as  far  back  as  1669  had  been  continu- 
ously revolting  under  Turkish  misrule,  culminated  in  1895,  and  the 
sympathy  of  the  ancient  mother  country  resulted  in  an  attempt  at 
annexation.  Greek  troops  were  landed  on  the  island,  but  this  action 
was  resisted  by  the  watchful  powers  then  treating  with  Turkey.  For 
the  time  being  Greece  withdrew  her  claim,  but  the  autonomy  prom- 
ised for  the  island  was  unsatisfactory,  and  the  Greeks  undertook 
to  settle  the  issue  by  force  of  arms. 

The  logical  result,  in  the  face  of  the  Turkish  strength  and  the 
unpreparedness  of  the  aggressive  nation,  was  a  humiliating  defeat 
to  Greece,  after  a  bitter  campaign  of  thirty-one  days.  Turkey's  de- 
mand for  Thessaly  was  not  allowed  by  the  powers,  although  the 
frontier  was  rearranged  somewhat  to  the  advantage  of  the  Otto- 
man empire,  and  a  large  indemnity  of  $18,000,000  was  imposed  on 
the  defeated  nation.  The  powers  now  stepped  into  a  share  in  the 
control  of  the  financial  affairs  of  Greece,  and  an  International  Finan- 
cial Commission  was  established  at  Athens  to  protect  the  interest 
on  the  large  external  debt,  the  revenues  from  the  state  monopolies, 
salt,  petroleum,  etc.,  together  with  specified  duties,  being  assigned 
to  the  Commission  for  that  purpose.  Crete  was  decreed  autono- 
mous, and  Prince  George  was  constituted  its  governor.  ]\Ieanwhile, 
undeterred  by  political  turmoil,  the  archaeological  exploration  of  the 
island  had  been  .systematically  pursued  with  results  tliat  from  the 
year  1890  began  to  assume  extraordinary  importance,  especially  in 
their  bearing  on  Mycenaean  civilization. 

One  effect  of  the  Turkish  disasters  was  the  deposition  in  Greece 
of  the  minister  Delyanni,  whom  King  George  dismissed  to  appease 
the  popular  clamor.  The  politics  of  modern  Greece,  as  might  he 
expected  from  this  people  descended  from  a  race  marked  by  political 
restlessness  and  strongly  given  to  faction,  have  been  diverse  and 
often  turbulent.  Until  1890  the  chief  party  leaders  were  Theotokis 
and,  in  the  Opposition,  Delyanni.  In  1890  tlie  Xeo-Hellenic  party 
arose    under    Ralh',    being    a    division    from    the    Opptjsition.     In 


P  R  E  S  E  N  T     K  I  N  G  D  0  M  549 

1864-1910 

1902  the  elections  returned  a  tie  between  the  Delyannists  and 
the  Theotokists.  Delyanni  was  instructed  to  form  a  cabinet,  and 
though  then  eighty  years  old,  the  minister  assumed  the  responsi- 
bilities of  office.  Theotokis  succeeded  him  in  1903,  quickly  followed 
by  Ralli,  but  again  came  into  office  after  a  short  term  of  the  latter. 
Under  Theotokis  in  1904  the  reorganization  of  the  national  army 
was  agitated  and  measures  looking  to  increase  and  betterment  were 
introduced.  In  the  following  year  the  aged  Delyanni  was  assas- 
sinated by  a  young  Greek  on  account  of  a  trivial  effect  of  his  policy. 
The  year  1905  was  further  marked  by  the  important  meeting  of  the 
Currant  Convention,  which  assured  a  reasonable  rate  for  their  prod- 
uce to  the  cultivators  of  the  currant-growing  district.  It  also  wit- 
nessed a  commercial  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  establishing  that 
country's  relations  under  the  "favored  nation"  clause.  Meanwhile 
there  occurred  an  ethnic  rupture  between  the  Roumanians  and 
Greeks,  which  finally  ended  in  the  termination  of  their  mutual 
commercial  agreements. 

In  1905,  the  assembly  of  the  Island  of  Crete  proclaimed  a  union 
with  Greece  which  was  objected  to  by  Great  Britain,  Russia, 
France,  and  Italy;  but  since  August  14,  1906,  these  powers  have 
recognized  the  right  of  the  King  of  Greece  to  propose  the  High 
Commissioner  for  the  island.  On  October  13,  1908,  the  Cretans 
again  announced  their  union  with  Greece,  but  the  powers  with- 
held their  assent  although  they  evacuated  the  island  on  July  27, 
1909.  For  nearly  one  month  the  Cretans  flew  the  Greek  flag,  ad- 
ministered Greek  law,  and  acted  as  if  they  were  Greek  subjects. 
The  Young  Turk  regime  at  Constantinople  insisted  that  Crete 
should  remain  Turkish  property  even  at  the  expense  of  a  war  with 
Greece.  Several  notes  passed  between  the  foreign  offites  at  Athens 
and  Constantinople  and  at  times  diplomatic  relations  were  nearly 
severed.  On  August  18,  1909,  at  the  request  of  the  Porte,  a  party 
of  sailors  from  the  warships  of  the  four  protecting  powers  landed 
at  Cannae  and  hauled  down  the  Greek  flag  from  the  fort. 

Greece  has  had  considerable  trouble,  also,  with  Macedonian 
complications  owing  to  the  fact  that  Greeks  have  been  taking 
refuge  in  the  Balkans  to  such  an  extent  that  new  homes  had  to  be 
provided  for  five  thousand  of  them.  In  order  to  do  this,  in  1907, 
the  three  towns  of  Anchialos,  Euxecnoupolis  and  Phillippopolis 
were  founded  and  the  refugees  established  in  them.     As  early  as 


550  GREECE 

1864-1910 

1908,  troubles  with  Turkey  were  looming  in  the  near  future  and 
the  country  was  agitated  over  discussions  relative  to  the  improve- 
ment and  reorganization  of  the  navy,  but  no  definite  action  was 
taken.  These  foreign  troubles,  however,  were  complicated  by  in- 
ternal dissensions,  and  in  the  conflict  between  the  crown  and 
the  military  element,  on  August  31,  1909,  Prince  Nicholas,  third 
son  of  the  King  of  Greece,  sought  to  placate  the  warring  elements 
by  asking  permission  to  resign  his  post  as  inspector-general  of 
artillery.  Following  this,  on  October  15,  the  Greek  Chamber  of 
Deputies  voted  bills  for  abolishing  the  right  of  royal  princes  to  be 
military  commanders.  This  same  fall  another  internal  disturbance 
distracted  the  country,  for  Typoldos,  a  lieutenant  of  a  torpedo  boat 
destroyer  flotilla,  rebelled,  attacked  the  government  forces  at 
Salamos,  but  was  finally  defeated  and  court-marshaled.  The  re- 
opening of  trouble  in  Crete  was  evidenced  on  December  9,  when 
the  protecting  princes  refused  to  grant  Turkey's  request  for  inter- 
ference. The  new  year,  1910,  opened  with  expressed  hostility  from 
Turkey,  and  war  seemed  iminent  between  Greece  and  that  country. 
The  internal  dissenions  between  the  king,  the  ministry  and  the 
National  Assembly  or  Bule,  as  it  is  called,  on  the  one  side  and  the 
Military  League  on  the  other,  made  a  complication  that  was  not 
favorable  to  the  Greeks  themselves.  The  burning  of  the  royal 
palace  at  Tatoi,  near  Athens,  on  January  6,  1910,  v.-as  looked  upon 
as  a   disaster  of  ill  omen. 

To-day  the  kingdom  of  Greece  includes,  besides  the  Pelopon- 
nesus, Thessaly,  and  Northern  Greece,  the  islands,  Euboea  and 
Sporades,  the  Cyclades,  Corfu,  Zante,  and  Cephalonia,  and  embraces 
25,014  English  square  miles.  The  poprdation,  covering  Greeks 
and  the  Hellenized  Albanians,  amounts,  in  round  numbers,  to 
2,630,000,  which  for  purposes  of  legislation  and  communal  control 
were  grouped  in  1899  into  26  monarchies,  subdivided  again  into 
69  districts  and  442  communes.  Athens,  the  capital,  has  a  popu- 
lation of  about  168,000,  the  next  larger  towns  being  Piraeus  (the 
port  of  Athens),  Patras,  Corfu,  Larissa,  Volo,  Trikkala,  and 
Hermopolis. 

The  cabinet  or  ministry  of  the  kingdom  consists  of  the  Premier 
and  Minister  of  Finance  and  Foreign  Affairs,  together  with  the 
departments  of  Justice,  Public  Instruction,  Interior,  \\'ar,  and 
]\Iarine.    The  present  revenue  and  expenditures,  which  about  bal- 


P  R  E  S  E  N  T     K  I  N  G  D  0  M  551 

1864-1910 

ance,  amount  to  close  upon  one  hundred  and  sixteen  million  cur- 
rency drachmai  each.  The  currency  drachmai  varies  from  twelve 
and  one-half  to  fifteen  cents,  while  the  gold  drachmai  is  estimated 
at  about  the  value  of  twenty  cents.  The  governments  of  the  old 
protecting  powers,  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Russia,  make  an 
annual  allowance  to  the  nation's  civil  list  and  exercise  some  degree 
of  financial  control,  in  the  interest  of  the  external  debt  of  the  king- 
dom. The  constitution,  adopted  in  1864,  vests  the  legislative 
power  in  a  single  chamber,  called  the  Bule,  consisting  at  present 
of  235  representatives,  elected  by  manhood  suffrage  for  a  term  of 
four  years.  The  legislative  assembly  has  no  power  to  alter  the 
constitution :  it  must  meet  annually  for  not  less  than  three  nor  more 
than  six  months,  and  no  sitting  is  valid  unless  at  least  one-half  of 
the  members  are  present;  while  bills  become  law  only  on  being 
passed  by  an  absolute  majority  in  their  favor. 

The  religion  of  the  bulk  of  the  inhabitants  of  Greece  and  the 
islands  is  that  of  the  Greek  Orthodox  Church,  which  is  ruled  by  a 
council  called  the  Holy  Synod.  Complete  toleration  and  liberty 
of  worship  are  guaranteed  to  all  other  sects.  King  George  I.  is 
allowed  to  adhere  to  the  Protestant  Lutheran  faith  in  which  he  was 
brought  up,  but  according  to  the  laws  of  the  country  his  successors 
on  the  throne  must  belong  to  the  national  church.  Of  the  state 
religion  there  are  to-day  about  2,000,000  adherents ;  other  Chris- 
tians, chiefly  Roman  Catholics,  number  15,000;  while  according  to 
most  recent  estimates  there  are  nearly  6,000  Jews,  25,000  Moham- 
medans, and  750  of  different  religious  beliefs.  The  status  of  edu- 
cation is  better  in  theory  than  it  is  in  practice.  According  to  law, 
which  in  the  country  districts  is  not  strictly  enforced,  all  children 
between  the  ages  of  five  and  twelve  must  attend  school ;  but  of  the 
army  recruits  30  per  cent,  are  illiterate  and  15  per  cent,  can  read 
only.  Besides  private  schools,  education  by  the  state  is  repre- 
sented by  about  3,263  primary  schools,  attended  by  close  upon 
210,570  pupils.  There  are  also  285  so-called  Greek  schools,  with 
some  22,039  pupils  and  833  teachers.  The  gymnasiums  number 
39,  with  5,556  pupils.  There  are  besides  two  agricultural  schools 
and  a  trade  and  industrial  academy.  The  University  of  Athens, 
founded  in  1836,  is  attended  by  about  3,000  students,  over  a  fourth 
of  the  number  being  Turks.  Its  faculty  consists  of  57  professors 
and  48  lecturers.     The  state  appropriates  annually  about  $700,000 


552  GREECE 

1864-1910 

for  higher  and  middle  education,  and  maintains  at  Corfu  a  prepara- 
tory school  for  officers  of  the  reserve  army;  and  at  Athens  there 
is  a  school  of  cavalry,  a  military  school  for  cadets,  as  well  as  a 
school  for  under-officers. 

The  regulations  provide  for  an  army  of  from  120,000  to  130,- 
000  men  on  a  war  footing.  Service  is  compulsory  and  universal, 
commencing  in  the  twenty-first  year  and  lasting  thirty  years — 
two  years  in  the  active  army,  ten  in  the  reserve,  eight  in  the  ter- 
ritorial, and  ten  in  the  territorial  reserve.  The  territorial  army  is 
intended  primarily  for  home  defense  but  certain  classes  may 
be  drafted  to  the  field  in  time  of  war;  it  has  no  definite  organiza- 
tion and  the  men  receive  no  training.  For  the  regular  army  the 
country  is  divided  into  three  zones  or  regions,  each  of  which  fur- 
nishes a  complete  division.  The  troops  and  field  artillery  have 
recently  been  re-armed  with  modern  rifles  and  guns.  The  navy  of 
Greece  is  manned  partly  by  conscription  from  the  men  of  the  sea- 
coast  and  partly  by  enlistment,  the  period  of  service  being  two 
years.  Greece  possesses  no  first-class  battleships,  although  some 
modern  vessels  are  "projected,"  and  her  navy  ranks  about  fifteenth 
in  comparison  with  those  of  the  world.  It  is  equipped  in  its  vari- 
ous branches  by  about  4,000  men,  the  commissioned  officers  not 
quite  reaching  600.  It  has  three  old  battleships,  eight  torpedo 
gunboats,  and  twelve  torpedo  boats.  There  is  besides  a  large  mer- 
chant navy,  consisting  of  sailing  vessels  and  steamers,  chiefly  car- 
rying from  and  to  the  ancient  seaport  of  Piraeus  the  trade  of  the 
eastern  Mediterranean,  the  Bosporus,  and  the  Black  Sea. 

The  chief  articles  of  export  from  Greece  embrace,  besides  ores, 
currants,  olive  oil,  wines  and  cognac,  figs,  olives,  sponges,  silk 
and  cocoons,  gall  nuts,  tobacco,  and  gunpowder.  The  annual  value 
of  these  exports  (a  total  of  about  $25,000,000)  is  exceeded  by  the 
yearly  value  of  the  imports,  which  is  close  upon  $29,000,000,  chiefly 
cereals,  yarn,  and  woven  stuffs,  coal  and  other  minerals,  live  stock, 
fish,  raw  hides,  wood  and  timber,  paper,  chemicals  and  colors,  glass 
and  earthenware,  with  sugar,  coffee,  rice,  and  other  commodities. 
The  railways  open  for  traffic  in  the  kingdom  have  a  mileage  of 
about  845  miles,  with  over  200  miles  additional  under  construc- 
tion. The  mileage  of  internal  communication  by  roads  is  about 
3,000  miles;  these  have  latterly  been  improved  and  are  now  being 
added  to.    The  post  and  telegraph  systems  are  also  being  extended : 


P  R  E  S  E  N  T     K  I  N  G  DOM  552a 

1864-1910 

the  length  of  the  telegraph  lines,  land  and  submarine,  now  exceeds 
5,100  English  miles.  There  is  also  open  for  traffic  the  canal  across 
the  isthmus  of  Corinth,  about  four  miles  in  length,  constructed  at 
a  cost  of  over  $5,000,000.  The  land  of  Greece  is  chiefly  in  the  hands 
of  peasant  proprietors,  and  though  of  unusual  fertility,  it  is  as  yet 
only  partially,  and  that  indifterently,  cultivated.  There  are  a  few 
large  proprietors,  and  also  the  corporations  interested  in  special 
products,  such  as  the  currant,  the  annual  crop  of  which  exceeds 
150,000  tons.  There  are  also  the  wine,  olive,  and  fig-growing 
industries,  which  are  large ;  silk  culture  and  tobacco  raising  are 
being  encouraged,  but  the  picking  of  acorns,  which  are  used  in 
tanning,  is  gradually  being  abandoned,  owing  to  artificial  substi- 
tutes. The  marketable  ores  produced  are  mainly  manganese  iron 
ore,  hematite,  zinc  ore,  lead  ore,  and  galena,  besides  copper, 
barytes,  salt,  sulphur,  emery,  gypsum,  kaoline,  and  marble.  In 
the  whole  of  Greece  the  average  production  of  cereals  an- 
nually is  wheat  7,000,000,  and  barley  3,000,000  bushels;  rye, 
8,500,000  bushels,  besides  maize  and  mazlin.  Greece,  on  her  farms 
and  pasture  lands,  has  also  over  100,000  horses,  375,000  cattle,  and 
3,000,000  sheep. 

These  data  will  give  a  fairly  adequate  idea  of  the  present  con- 
dition of  the  Hellenic  kingdom,  and  the  prospect  of  growth  for 
herself  and  her  tributary  islands.  Granted  continued  peace  and 
unity  within  her  borders,  with  the  mind  and  energies  of  her  people 
patriotically  and  sustainedly  directed,  the  future  of  Greece  cannot 
fail  to  be  bright.  In  her  favor,  she  has  the  good  will  and  sym- 
pathy of  the  chief  Christian  nations  of  Europe,  and  of  all  liberty- 
loving  and  right-thinking  people.  How  long  Turkey  will  remain 
a  menace  to  her,  no  one  can  predict,  but  if  she  keeps  honestly  and 
restrainedly  on  her  own  course,  developing  her  own  resources, 
and  refraining  from  embroiling  herself  in  external  quarrels,  she 
will  not  lack  what  she  has  hitherto  had  in  ample  and  considerate 
measure — the  active  sympathy  and  aid  of  powerful  and  disinter- 
ested allies  and  friends. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


The  reader  of  history,  apart  from  the  student  of  history,  has  need  for  an 
eclectic  bibliography  only.  With  the  volnniinous  literature  of  the  subject  of 
Greece  and  Grecian  history,  and  especially  with  that  portion  of  it  which  for  want 
of  a  better  name  may  be  termed  controversial,  the  average  reader  has  only  a 
partial  concern.  But  in  one  of  its  many  purposes  this  volume  would  distinctly 
fail  if  its  perusal  did  not  awaken  sufficient  interest  in  the  subject  to  send  the 
reader  off  to  his  library  shelves,  there  to  follow  some  special  period  in  fuller 
detail  or  to  compare,  contrast,  or  reconcile  equally  worthy  views. 

This  history  of  Greece,  supplementing  Oman's  account  with  a  summary  of 
events  from  the  death  of  Alexander  to  the  present  day,  is  intended  as  a  readable 
general  survey.  But  it  is  exceedingly  important  that  the  reader  should  bear 
in  mind  and,  as  opportunity  or  interest  dictates,  make  substantial  use  of  the  fol- 
lowing list  of  books  selected  from  the  most  noteworthy  single  works  dealing 
with  the  history  of  Greece. 

GENERAL   HISTORIES 

Abbott,  Evelyn. — "  History  of  Greece."     2  vols.     Putnam. 

Beloch,  Julius. — "  Criechische   Geschichte."     Strasburg.    1899. 

Among  the  more  modern  histories  of  Greece,  dealing  with  the  general 
subject  and  based  on  substantial  scholarship. 

Busolt,    Georg. — "  Criechische    Geschichte    bis    cur    Schlacht    hci    Chacroucia." 
Gotha,  1893. 
Ranking  with  Beloch  as  representative  of  the  first  scholarship  and  historical 
genius  of  the  day.     Unfortunately,  however,  neither  of  these  authors  is  as 
yet  accessible  in  translation. 

Bury,  John  B. — "  History  of  Greece."     Macmillan. 
Recent  and  authoritative. 

Curtius,  Ernst. — "History  of  Greece."     Ward  tr.    5  vols.     Scribner. 

Important  among  the  general  histories  of  the  earlier  generation,  but  not, 
of  course,  in  line  with  later  philological  research.  Opposes  Grote  in  many 
respects   and   interesting   by  contrast. 

Duncker,  M. — "  History  of  Greece  to  the  End  of  the  Persian  War."     London 
and  Edinburgh,   1883. 
Of  exceptional  importance  for  the  period  covered. 

Grote,  George. — "  Plistory  of  Greece."     New  ed.,  rev.     Little,  Brown  &  Co. 

One  of  the  greatest  histories,  and  the  first  worthy  history  of  the  subject. 
Marked  by  a  power  of  generalization  and  combination.  Grote  is  especially 
strong  in  the  earlier  period  and  his  marked  democratic  sympathies  are 
noticeable  throughout,  giving  him  a  strong  advantage  in  estimating  his 
subject. 

Thirlwall,    Connop. — "  History   of    Greece."     8   vols. 

Strong  in  the  later  history  and  for  that  reason,  as  well  as  for  his  charac- 
teristic aristocratic  view-point,  a  good  complement  to  Grote.  While  histori- 
cally and  in  quality  of  interest  Thirlwall  is  considered  to  fall  short  of 
Grote,  he  has  the  advantage  of  a  better  literary  style. 

555 


556  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Holm,  Adolf. — "  History  of  Greece   from  the   Commencement  to  the   Close  of 
the  Independence  of  the  Greek  Nation."     4  vols.     ^Macmillan,  i8g8. 
Holm's  work  is  as  acceptable  to  the  scholar  as  it  is  useful  to  the  general 
reader,  and  no  better  history  of  its  size  and  scope  exists. 

jMitford,  William. — "History  of  Greece." 

As  the  precursor  and  inspiration  of  Grote,  Mitford  has  his  place  in  any 
bibliography  of  Greece,  but  otherwise,  though  interesting,  his  ]);\'judiccs 
and  conclusions  hardly  give  him  any  modern  importance. 

A^IONG  THE  SHORTER  GENERAL  HISTORIES  ARE: 

Cox,  Sir  George  W. — "  General  History  of  Greece  to  the  Death  of  Alexander." 
(Epochs  of  Ancient  History  Series.)     Longmans. 

This  is  one  of  the  very  best  of  the  briefer  histories  and  is  especially  adapted 

to  the  needs  of  the  general  reader. 
Fyffe,  Charles  Allen. — "History  of  Greece."  (Primer.)  American  Book  Company. 

Like  all   in  the   "Primer"    series,  this  is   an   excellent   and   useful   concise 

manual. 
Harrison,  James  Albert.—"  The  Story  of  Greece."     Putnam. 

A  readable  narrative  in  the  "  Story  of  the  Nations  "  style. 
Alorcy,  William  C. — "Outlines  of  Greek  History."     New  York,  1903. 

In    essence    a   text-book,   but   contains    commendable    sununaries    and    some 

excellent  considerations  on  the  subject  of  Greek  life  and  culture  during  the 

different  periods. 
Timayenis,  T.  T. — "  Greece  from  the  Earliest  Times  to  the  Present."     2  vols. 
Appleton. 

This  develops  the  history  of  Greece  in  a  spirited  narrative,  and  is  especially 

valuable  for  the  section  dealing  with  modern  times. 

SPECIAL    PERIODS 

Of  the  special  periods  of  the  historical  age,  it  may  be  said  that,  for  the 
Peloponnesian  War,  Thucydides'  own  account  will,  perhaps,  always  remain 
superior  to  any  modern  work.  For  the  events  immediately  following,  probalViy 
'lliirlwall  and  Freeman  have  given  the  most  successful  treatment  among  standard 
authors.  For  the  period  of  Roman  occupation,  the  works  of  Hertzburg  and 
Finlay  might  be  suggested  as  of  most  importance.  A  general  list  of  books 
helpful  on  the  special  periods  and  phases  of  Greece  would  include : 

Abbott,   Evelyn. — "Pericles   and  the  Golden  Age  of  Athens."     (Heroes  of  the 
Nations.)     New  York. 
A  masterly  .sketch. 

Bickford-Smith,  R.  A.  H. — "  Greece  under  King  George."     London,  1893. 

Berard,  V. — "La  Turqitie  et  I'liellcnisme  couicmporainc."     Paris,  1900. 

Bikelas,  Y).—"  La  Grccc  By::antine  et  modcnic."     Paris,  1893. 

Bocckh,  Augustus. — "  The  Public  Economy  of  the  Athenians."     3d  German  ed. 
1886.  ' 
Practically    indispensable   to   the    student   of   Greek    affairs,    showing   much 
original   investigation  and  thought  and  hardly  diminished   in  value  by  sub- 
sequent scholarship. 

Cox,  Sir  George.—''  The  Greeks  and  the  Persians."     Longmans. 

"The  Athenian  Empire."     Longmans. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  557 

Curtius,  Can.  A.  M. — '"  The  Macedonian  Empire."     Longmans. 

These  last  three  are  all  in  the  Epochs  of  Ancient  History  Series  and  con- 
stitute good  summaries. 

Finlay,  George. — "  History  of  Greece  from  the  Conquest  by  the  Romans  to  the 
Present  Time.''     7  vols.     Oxford. 
Learned,  accurate  and  severely  critical,  Finlay's  work  is  the  standard   for 
the  period  from  146  B.C.  to  his  own  time   (1864). 

Freeman,  E.  A. — "  History  of  Federal  Government  in  Greece."  Vol.  I.  London, 
1893. 
This  first  volume  contains  the  general  introduction  to  the  subject  and  a 
history  of  the  Greek  federation,  and  though  a  fragment  it  possesses  extreme 
importance  as  such.  Especially  interesting  for  comparison  with  American 
civic  ideas. 

Gardner,  E.  A. — "  Ancient  Athens."    Macmillan. 

Lloyd,  W.  Vv'atkiss. — "  The  Age  of  Pericles."    2  vols.    Macmillan. 

Though  perhaps  deficient  in  style,  this  work  is  scholarly  and  soimd. 

Mahaffy,  J.  P. — "Alexanders  Empire."    (Story  of  the  Nations).     Putnam. 

"  The  Greek  World  Under  Roman  Sway."    Macmillan. 

The  Ptolemaic  epoch  has  come  to  be  Mahaffy's  own.  ^Marked  by  great 
scholarship,  all  of  the  works  of  Mahaffy  are  distinct  contributions,  and  the 
charm  of  a  rare  literary  style  enhances  their  reading  value. 

Greco-Turkish  War  of  1897.     From  Official  Sources  by  a  German  Staff  Officer. 
English  tr.     London,  1897. 

Jebb,  Richard  Claverhouse. — "  -Modern  Greece." 

Ridgeway,  William. — "  The  Early  Age  of  Greece."     Cambridge,  1901. 

Note  also  this  author's  contributions  on  the  Mycenaean  Age  appearing  from 
time  to  time  in  the  Journal  of  Hellenic  Studies. 

Sankey,   C. — "  The    Spartan   and   Theban   Supremacy."     Longmans. 
\  good  summary.     One  of  the  Epochs  in  Ancient  History  Scries. 

Samuelson,  James. — *"  Greece:  Present  Condition  and  Recent  Progress."   London, 
1894. 

Sergent,  L.— "  Greece  in  the  Nineteenth  Century."     London,  1897. 

Tricoupis,   S. — "  History  of  the  Greek  Revolution." 

The  best  for  its  period,  preserving  the  national  standpoint. 

Wheeler,  B.  I. — "Alexander  the  Great."    (Heroes  of  the  Nation.)      Putnam. 
A  good  narrative  account  of  Alexander's  invasion. 

GREEK  LIFE  AND  CULTURE 

The  literature  of  so  fascinating  a  subject  as  Greek  life  and  art  is  naturally 
very  extensive.  From  the  highly  technical  dissertations  of  archaeologists  and 
scholars  down  to  the  essays  in  appreciation  by  enthusiastic  admirers,  the  dis- 
cussion of  Greek  civilization  proves  its  absorbing  interest  in  every  phase  and  no 
better  field  is  offered  for  parallel  reading.  For  ethnological  disquisition  a 
valuable  article  by  Stephanos  is  available  in  the  Dictionnairc  encyclopedique  de 
sciences  inedicales  (Paris,  1884),  entitled,  "La  Grece  au  point  de  vuc  naturel, 
etlviiologiqiie,  anthropologique,  de  mographique."  For  a  consideration  of  the 
influence  of  Egj-pt  on  Aegean  civilization,  see  Evans's  "  The  Eastern  Question 
in  Anthropolog}'."  (1896.)  Of  the  following  books,  the  titles  will  sufficiently 
indicate  their  special  bearing : 

Collignon,  JNIaxime. — "  Histoire  de  la  sculpture  grecquc."     Paris,  1897. 
Ranking  as  practically  the  best  history  of  the  subject. 


558  B  I  B  L  I  O  G  R  A  V  H  Y 

Davidson,  Thoma?. — "  Education  of  the  Greek  People."     Appleton. 
Diehl,  Charles. — "Excursions  archiologiques  in  Grece."     Paris,  1893. 
Felton,  C.  C. — "  Greece,  Ancient  and  Modern."    Houghton,  jNIifflin  &  Co. 

Volumes    of    essaj'S    dealing    with    the    literature,    social    life    and    political 

institutions  of  Greece,  charming  in  style  and  of  exceeding  popularity,  but 

allowance  must  be  made  for  the  varying  conclusions  of  subsequent  research. 
Furtwangler,  Adolph. — "  Masterpieces  of  Greek  Sculpture."     Scribner. 

This  book  has  a  unique  value  for  its  classification  and  shrewd  identification 

(conjectural)   of  surviving  pieces. 
Freeman,  Edward  A. — "  Sketches  of  Travel  in  Greece  and  Italy."    Putnam. 

"  Greater  Greece  and  Greater  Britain."    Macmillan. 

Gayley,  Charles  M. — '"  Classic  Myths."    Ginn. 

Modeled  on  Bulfinch,  and  for  the  general  reader  an   improvement  on   its 

model. 
Goll,  H. — ''Kulturbilder  aiis  Hellas  tind  Rome."    Leipsic,  1878. 

Descriptive  rather  than  critical  and  accessible  to  the  reader  of  easy  German. 
Gardner,  Ernest  Arthur. — "  Hand   Book  of  Greek   Sculpture."   Macmillan. 
Gardner,  Percy. — "  New  Chapters  in  Greek  History."     Putnam. 

An  authoritative  summary  of  recent  archccological   results  bearing  on  the 

life,  religion  and  arts  of  Ancient  Greece. 
Gladstone,  William  E. — "  Studies  in  Homer  and  the  Homeric  Age." 

Though    chiefly    technical    and    showing    familiarity    with    the    minutiae    of 

Greek  scholarship,  this  book  is  interesting  and  the  chapter  on  the  politics  of 

the  Homeric  age  is  one  of  peculiar  value. 
Hogarth,    David    George. — "  Mycenaean    Civilization."      New    volume.    9th    ed. 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica. 

In  the  light  of  modern  scholastic  claims,  based  on  archaeological  develop- 
ments ;  this  article  should  be  consulted  by  all  means. 
Hall,  H.  R. — "  The  Oldest  Civilization  of  Greece." 

Jebb,  R.  C. — "The  Growth  and  Influence  of  Classical  Greek  Poetry."    Macmillan. 
Guerber,  Helene  Adeline. — "  Myths  of  Greece  and  Rome."    American  Book  Co. 

Fairly  comprehensive,  and  in  style  unusually  good  and  readable. 
Lubke,  Wilhelm. — "  Outlines  of  the   History  of  Art."     New  ed.     Dodd,  Mead 
&  Co. 

This  should  be  available  for  reference. 
Overbeck,  Johannes  Adolf. — "Gcschichte  dcs  gricchischen  Plaslik."   Leipsic,  1894. 

A  standard  of  the  old  school.     The  work  of  a  specialist  and  hence  more 

elaborate  than  Lubke's. 
Perrot,  George,  and  Chipiez,  Charles. — " Histoire  de  l\lrt." 

A  great  authority  and  the  work  should  be  a  familiar  one  for  reference. 
MahafTy,  Jolm  Pentland. — "  Old  Greek  Education."    American  Book  Co. 

"Old  Greek  Life."    (Primer.)   American  Book  Co. 

"  Social  Life  in  Greece."    Macmillan. 

"  Survey  of  Greek  Civilization."    Macmillan. 

—"Greek  Life  and  Thought."     Macmillan. 

"  History  of  Classical  Greek  Literature."     Macmillan. 

All  of  Prof.  Mahafify's  works  are  books  of  profit  and  delight. 
Moulton,  Richard  Green. — "  The  Ancient  Classical  Drama."     Oxford. 

A  critical  study  of  an  important  subject. 
Pater,  Walter. — "  Greek  Studies."     Macmillan. 

Essays  on  sculpture  and  architecture.     Valuable  in  substance  and  no  less 

in  their  inspiration  to  an  appreciation  of  the  Greek  spirit. 
Rodd,  J.  Rennell. — "The  Customs  and  Lore  of  Modern  Greece."     London,  1892. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  559 

Symonds,  J.  A. — "  Studies  and  Sketches  in  Italy  and  Greece."     London,  1898. 

Schleimann,  Heinrich. — "  Ancient  Mycene."     New  and  enl.  ed.     Scribner. 

"  Ilios."     Harper. 

"  Troja."    Harper. 

The  works  of  this  foremost  archaeologist  are  not  to  be  overlooked  in  their 
bearing  on  the  art  and  civilization  of  the  ancient  Greeks. 

Schuchhardt,   Carl. — ''  Schleimann's   Excavations."     Seller's  tr.     ^lacmillan. 

Summarizing   in   an   admirable   manner   the    results   of   Prof.    Schleimann's 
archaeological  research. 

Tarbell,  Frank  Bigelow. — "  History  of  Greek  Art."     iVIacmillan. 

A  little  book  of  value  out  of  proportion  to  its  size.     In  general  to  be  con- 
sidered the  very  best  of  the  briefer  works. 

Tsountas,  Chrestas.  and  Manatt,  J.  Irving. — "  The  Mycenean  Age."     Houghton. 

Wordsworth,   C — "  Greece :    Pictorial,  Descriptive  and   Historical.''      Scribner. 

Zeller,  Edward. — '"  Outlines  of  Greek  Philosoph3\"     Holt. 

A  good  outline.     For  more  extended  history  and  discussion  compare  this 
author's  volumes  on  specific  phases  of  Greek  philosophy. 

SOURCES 

The  literary  sources  of  Greek  history  derive  an  increased  significance  in 
the  light  of  modern  archaeological  developments,  and  while  comparisons  of 
these  two  distinct  sources  of  historic  information  undoubtedly  make  a  more 
special  appeal  to  the  classical  student  or  scholar,  no  intelligent  reader  can  be 
blunt  to  an  appreciation  of  the  new  interest  attached  to  Greek  literary  source 
material  when  measured  by  the  modern  "  archaeological  test." 

Homer,  for  the  mythological  and  heroic  ages,  is  the  one  chief  source,  and 
some  good  translation,  e.g.,  Chapman's  metrical  version  or  Butcher  and  Long's 
prose  rendering,  should  be  read  in  parts  as  interest  dictates.  Herodotus  is  an 
indispensable  source  book,  and  is  most  creditably  reliable  as  far  as  his  actual 
observations  extend.  Pausanias  constitutes  our  "  cicerone  and  tourist "  and  is  a 
wealth  of  miscellaneous  information  relating  to  the  topography,  history  and 
general  culture  of  Greece.  Strabo  is  our  geographer.  Polybius,  for  general 
accuracy,  is  one  of  the  most  important  of  the  ancient  writers.  Thucydides  still 
ranks  as  the  best  historian  of  the  Peloponnesian  War.  Xenophon's  "  Anabasis," 
"  Hellenica"  and  the  minor  works  as  well,  are  all  important.  Plato  and  Aristotle 
provide  our  knowledge  of  the  various  schools  of  Greek  philosophy  and  still 
afford  matter  for  modern  speculative  thought.  Aristotle,  moreover,  in  his 
"  Politics "  preserves  the  constitutions  of  the  Greek  states  and  the  discovery  in 
1891  of  a  genuine  treatise  by  him  on  the  constitution  of  Athens,  almost  complete  as 
to  text,  furnished  a  new  "  source  "  and  revolutionized  many  previous  scholarly 
conclusions.  This  manuscript,  the  lloXireia  riov  ^Affr^vaiivv,  was  probably  writ- 
ten at  the  end  of  the  first  century  a.  d.,  and  its  genuineness  is  undoubted.  (See 
note  page  loi.)  Plutarch,  though  not  writing  until  the  latter  half  of  the  first  cen- 
tury A.  D.,  besides  his  ethical  and  religious  reflections,  affords  us  most  interesting 
retrospective  views  of  men  who  in  his  time  were  already  "  illustrious  ancients." 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abdera:  founded,  82 

Abydos  :  battle  of,  364 

Acarnania :  geography  of,  10 ;  campaigns 
of  Demosthenes  in,  300;  conquered 
by  Agesilaus,  402;  joins  Aetolian 
League,  516 

Achaia:  geography  of,  17 ',  revives 
Achaean  League,  516;  created  a 
French  principality,  536 

Achaean  League:  revival  of,  516;  Philip 
V  of  Macedon  allied  v^rith,  517;  ex- 
piration of,  520 

Achaians,  The :  Homeric  importance  of, 
32;  conquered  by  Dorians,  48; 
claimed  as  leaders  of  Dorian  inva- 
sion, 49;  migration  to  Asia  Minor, 
52;  send  colonies  to  Italy,  84;  join 
Theban  alliance,  445;  join  Sparta, 
446 

Achaeus :  m34hical  founder  of  Hellenic 
clan,  24 

Acheloiis :  largest  river  of  Greece,  5,  10 

Achilles:  home  of,  9;  in  Homeric  poems, 

29,  Z2> 

Acragus  (Agrigentum)  :  founded,  84;  ty- 
rants of,  216;  resists  Gelo  of  Syra- 
cuse, 217;  taken  by  Hiero,  219;  taken 
by  Carthaginians,  410 

Actium :  battle  of,  522 

Adeimantus :    Corinthian   admiral,    199 

Adrianople :  Valens  defeated  at,  529 ; 
treaty  of,  545 

Aegean  civilization :  account  of,  20 

Aegina :  geography  of,  16 

Aeginetans :  at  war  with  Athens,  154; 
second  war  with  Athens,  173 ;  at  bat- 
tle of  Salamis,  202;  third  war  with 
Athens,  240 ;  conquered,  245 ;  ex- 
pelled from  their  island,  281 ;  re- 
stored  by   Lysander,   380 

Aegospotami:  battle  of,  375 


Aeolian  colonization :  in  earliest  authen- 
tic history,  31 

Aeolus :  mythical  founder  of  Hellenic 
clan,  24 

Aeschines:  ambassador  to  Philip,  467; 
impeached,  470;  stirs  up  Locrian 
war,  475 

Aetolia :  geography  of,  10 ;  Demosthenes' 
campaign  in,  300;  under  Macedonian 
supremacy,  513;  revives  Aetolian 
League,  516 

Aetolian  League:  revival  of,  516;  end  of, 

Aetolians :   in  the  great  migrations,  48 ; 

migration  to  Asia  Minor,  52 
Africa :  Greek  colonization  in,  86 
Agamemnon :  in  Homeric  poems,  29,  33 
Agathocles :  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  515 
Agesandridas :     Spartan     admiral,     361. 

363 
Agesilaus :  made  king  of  Sparta,  392 ; 
at  Aulis,  393;  his  successes  in  Asia, 
394 ;  returns  to  Europe,  399 ;  at  bat- 
tle of  Coronea,  401 ;  campaigns  of, 
round  Corinth,  402 ;  supports  Phoe- 
bidas,  422;  invades  Boeotia,  429;  de- 
fends Sparta,  441 ;  last  campaign  of, 
against  Epaminondas,  448;  expedi- 
tion to  Egypt  and  death,  452 
Agesipolis :   king  of  Sparta,  378;   death 

Agis  n.  King  of  Sparta :  invades  Argo- 
lis,  324;  wins  battle  of  Mantinea, 
326;  besieges  Athens,  277 '>  death  of, 

391 
Agis   III,  King  of  Sparta :   defeated  by 
Philip,  479;   in  arms  against  Alex- 
ander, 491 ;  slain  in  battle,  507 
Agis  IV:  king  of  Sparta,  517 
Agora,  The :    in  Homeric  times,  64 
Agriculture :    condition    of,    in    modern 
Greece,  547;  important  products  of, 
550 


563 


564. 


INDEX 


Agrigentum :   see   Acragas 
Alalia:    Phocaeans  colonize,   125 
Alaric,  the  Goth:  invades  Greece,  530 
Alcaeus:  Lesbian  poet,  115 
Alcibiades:  character  of,  322;  tricks  the 
Spartan     ambassadors,     323 ;     advo- 
cates   the    Sicilian    expedition,    329; 
accused    of    sacrilege,    331;    flies    to 
Sparta,  335;  goes  to  Asia,  352;  joins 
Tissaphernes,    354;    conspires    with 
Athenian     oligarchs,     355 ;     recalled 
from    exile.   359;    enters    Athens    in 
triumph,    367 ;    his    naval    victories, 
364-366;    banished,    370;    murdered, 

384 

Alomaeonidae :  curse  of  the,  100 

Aletes  :  king  of  Corinth,  92 

Alexander  I  of  Macedon,  184;  at  Athens, 
207 

Alexander  (III)  the  Great:  at  Chaero- 
neia,  477;  quarrels  with  his  father, 
481 ;  his  character,  483  ;  campaigns  in 
the  north,  485 ;  conquers  Thebes, 
486;  wins  battle  of  the  Granicus, 
489;  conquers  Asia  Minor,  490;  wins 
Issus,  492;  besieges  Tyre,  493;  in 
Egypt,  495 ;  wins  Arbela,  496 ;  con- 
quers Babylon,  497;  burns  Persepo- 
lis,  498;  slays  Cleitus,  499;  invades 
the  eastern  satrapies,  499;  slays  Phi- 
lotas,  501 ;  in  India,  501 ;  his  return 
march,  502 ;  plans  of,  503 ;  death  of, 

505 

Alexandria  (in  Egypt):  founded,  495; 
Greek  prominence  in,  513;  con- 
quered by  Saracens,  533 

Alexandro-eschata :   founded,  500 

Alexander  of  Pherae :  his  wars  with 
Thebes,  443,  444;  murdered,  448 

Ali  Pasha,  vizier  of  Janina,  541 

Alphabet,  The :  derived  from  Phoeni- 
cians, 27 

Alyattes  of  Lydia,   116 

Ambracia :  at  war  with  Athens.  300 ;  gar- 
risoned by  Philip.  480;  rebels  against 
Alexander,  485 

Ambrose,  St.,  Bishop  of  Milan,  528 

Ameinias   of    Pallene,   203 

Ammon :  oracle  of,  visited  by  Alex- 
ander, 495 

Amphiclus :  establishes  Greek  settlement 
in  Chios,  55 

Amphictyon :   mythical  hero,  24 


Amphictyonic  Council :  declares  war  on 
Phocis,    460;    on    the    Amphissians, 

475 

Amphipolis:  founded,  258;  revolts  from 
Athens,  314;  battle  of,  316;  taken 
by  Philip  of  Macedon,  458 

Amurath  II :  subdues  the  Peloponnesus, 

537 

Amyntas  I,  king  of  Macedon:  submits 
to  Persia,  133 

Amyntas  II :  king  of  Macedon,  456 

Anacreon  of  Teos,   115 

Anaxagoras :  accused  of  impict}-,  272 

Andocides,  334 

Androcles :    assassinated,   357 

Andros,  island  of:  colonization  from, 
80 

Antalcidas :  in  Asia,  403 ;  peace  of, 
404 

Anthropomorphism :  in  Greek  theology, 
40 

Antigonus :  his  share  in  Alexander's 
empire,  512 

Antigonus  Gonatas ;  seizes  Macedonian 
throne,  515 

Antioch :  Greek  culture  in,  513;  made 
capital  of  Roman  province,  526;  con- 
quered by  Saracens,  533 

Antiochus :  Athenian  admiral,  369 

Antiochus  of  Syria :  defeated  by  Greeks, 
518 

Antipater:  general  of  Alexander,  488; 
in  Lamian  war,  512;  his  share  of 
Alexander's  empire,  512;  invades 
Aetolia,  513 

Antiphilus:    Greek  commander,  512 

Antiphon:  heads  conspiracy  in  Athens, 
356;  executed,  362 

Aphrodite :  adopted  from  Phoenicians, 
28;  confused  attributes  of,  39;  wor- 
shiped at  Cnidus,  52 

Apollo:  his  oracle  at  Delphi,  12;  in 
Greek  theology,  40;  Pythian  games 
in  honor  of,  42;  Dorian  conception 
of,  50;  worshiped  by  Doric  llex- 
apolis,  56;  honored  by  Croesus,  118; 
his  temple  at  Mcgara  rebuilt  by 
Iladrian,  523 

Aratus  of  Si<:yon,  516 

Arbela :  battle  of.  496 

Arcadia:  geography  of,  18.  autochthon- 
ous claims  of,  26 

Arcadians:  revolts  of,  237;  found  Area- 


INDEX 


565 


dian  League,  439;  join  Epaminon- 
das,  440;  found  Megalopolis,  440; 
at  war  with  Elis,  446;  fall  into 
disunion,  453;  oppose  Alexander, 
486 

Arcadian  League :  founded,  439 

Archaeology:  value  of,  to  Greek  history, 
20,  548 

Archias  of  Thebes :  murdered,  424 

Archidamus,  King  of  Sparta :  besieges 
Plataea,  288 

Archon:  office  of,  created  at  Athens,  98; 
made  subject  to  lot,  175;  opened  to 
Zeugitae,  252 

Archidamus,  King  of  Sparta,  270;  in- 
vades Attica,  278,  282 

Arctinus,   and   cyclic  poems,  31 

Ardys  of  Lydia,  116 

Areopagus:  council  of  Athens,  98;  cedes 
political  duties  to  Boule,  106;  hum- 
bled by  Pericles  and  Ephialtes,  239 

Argeians :  in  Homer,  2^ ;  in  Egyptian 
inscriptions,  33 

Arginusae :  battle  of,  S72 

Argo  :    legendary  ship,  9 

Argolis :  geography  of,  16 

Argos:  situation  of,  10;  in  Dorian  leg- 
end, 48 ;  primacy  in  Peloponnesus, 
58;  struggle  with  Sparta,  74;  resists 
Sparta,  76;  reduction  of,  77;  wars 
with  Sparta,  156,  237,  323,  398;  allied 
to  Epaminondas,  440;  allied  with 
Philip  of  Macedon,  470 

Ariobarzanes :   last  hero  of   Persia,  498 

Aristagoras:  tyrant  of  Miletus,  133; 
slain,  136 

Aristeides :  his  character,  159;  ostra- 
cized, 176;  at  Salamis,  201;  heads 
Athenian  squadron,  222 ;  starts  the 
Confederacy  of  Delos,  227;  his  po- 
litical reforms,  230 

Aristeus :  at  Potidaea,  269;  slain,  284 

Aristocracy:  in  Homeric  Greece,  36 

Aristodemus:  Dorian  hero,  48;  in  Spar- 
tan legend,  61 ;  national  hero  of 
Messenia,  72 ;  of  Cumae,  95 

Aristomenes :  in  second  Messenian  war, 

74 
Aristogeiton :    attacks    Peisistratidae    at 

Athens,  112 
Aristotle :  tutor  of  Alexander,  484 
Aristoteles :  made  Libyan  king,  87 
Army:  of  modern  Greece,  549 


Arsames :  Persian  satrap,  491 

Arsites :  Persian  satrap,  commands 
against  Alexander,  488 

Artabazus :  satrap,  205,  211 

Artaphernes :   satrap  of  Lydia,   133,   158 

Artaphernes  the  younger,  163 

Artaxerxes :  son  of  Xerxes,  231;  Athens 
seeks  peace  with,  250 

Artaxerxes  II:  succeeds  Darius,  388; 
claims  the  cities  of  Asia,  405 

Artemis :  confused  attributes  of,  39 ; 
worshiped  at  Ephesus,  52 

Artemisia,  Queen :  advises  Darius,  202 

Artemisium :  battle  of,  189 

Ashtaroth :  Phoenician  model  of  Aph- 
rodite, 28 

Asia  Minor :  connection  with  Greece,  20, 
22,  23 ;  piratical  tribes  of,  harass 
Egypt,  25  ;  Greek  colonization  in,  51 ; 
geography  of,  52;  assigned  to  An- 
tigonus  after  death  of  Alexander, 
512;  Greek  prosperity  in,  513 

Aspasia :  account  of,  272 

Assembly :  the  Spartan,  64 

Assyria :  religion  of,  compared  to  re- 
ligion of  the  Greeks,  40;  power  and 
fall  of,   119,  120 

Astyochus :   Spartan  admiral,  352 

Assurbanipal :   see   Sardanapalus 

Athena:  in  Greek  theology,  40;  Lycur- 
gus  enjoins  worship  of,  63 

Athens :  Homeric  insignificance  of,  33 ; 
early  history  of,  97;  government  of, 
98;  social  order  in,  99;  war  with 
Megara,  102 ;  social  order  in  time 
of  Solon,  105 ;  republic  restored, 
113;  aids  the  lonians,  134;  wars 
with  Cleomenes,  141 ;  with  Aegina 
and  Thebes,  143 ;  reforms  of  Cleis- 
thenes  in,  145 ;  defeats  the  Persians 
at  Marathon,  168;  second  war  with 
Aegina,  173 ;  occupied  by  Xerxes, 
198;  evacuated  by  the  Persians, 
206;  Mardonius  completes  destruc- 
tion of,  208;  reforms  of  Aristeides, 
230;  building  up  of  her  empire,  232; 
heads  the  Confederacy  of  Delos, 
238;  at  war  with  Corinth  and  Ae- 
gina, 242 ;  with  Boeotia,  243 ;  her 
successes,  244,  246 ;  loses  Boeotia 
and  Euboea,  247 ;  at  war  with  Sparta, 
248;  makes  the  Thirty  Years'  Peace, 
249;    under    Pericles,    251;    colonies 


566 


INDEX 


of,  258 ;  assists  Corcyra,  267 ;  en- 
gages in  Peloponnesian  war,  272 ; 
resources  compared  with  Sparta's, 
275 ;  plague  at,  282 ;  debates  in  Ec- 
clesia  at,  294,  296;  rejects  overtures 
of  Sparta,  303 ;  accepts  temporary 
peace,  315;  makes  peace  with  Sparta, 
317;  allied  to  Argos  and  Elis,  321; 
sends  expedition  to  Sicily,  328;  de- 
cline of,  349 ;  continues  the  war, 
351;  oligarchic  conspiracy  at,  355, 
357 ;  conspiracy  of  the  Four  Hun- 
dred at,  358;  rejects  terms  with 
Sparta,  365 ;  distress  at,  371,  trial 
of  the  generals  at,  373;  besieged 
by  Agis  and  Lysander,  376;  sur- 
renders, 378;  causes  of  her  down- 
fall, 379;  under  the  thirty  tyrants, 
383,  385 ;  delivered  by  Thrasybulus, 
386;  joins  Boeotian  League,  397;  her 
walls  rebuilt  by  Conon,  402;  naval 
efforts  of,  404;  in  peace  of  Antalci- 
das,  405  ;  again  allied  to  Thebes,  428; 
forms  second  naval  league  against 
Sparta,  429;  makes  peace  with 
Sparta,  432;  joins  Sparta  against 
Thebes,  442;  attacks  Corinth,  446; 
in  the  peace  of  362  B.C.,  451; 
engages  in  the  Social  War,  454; 
troubles  with  Philip  of  Macedon, 
459,  461 ;  makes  peace  with  Philip, 
467 ;  second  struggle  with  Philip, 
472;  war  declared,  474;  allied  with 
Thebes,  475;  submits  to  Philip,  478; 
beaten  at  Chaeroneia,  478 ;  submits 
to  Alexander,  486;  in  division  of 
Alexander's  empire,  512;  Romans 
attracted  to,  513,  521;  joins  Achaean 
League,  516;  siege  of,  522;  adorned 
by  Hadrian,  523 ;  captured  by 
Turks,  536;  Prankish  dukedom  of, 
536;  captured  by  Turks.  539;  mod- 
ern capital  of  Greece,  548 
Athens,  The  University  of,  549 
Athos,    Mount :    Xerxes    cuts    a    canal 

through,  183 
Attains :    general   of    Philip,   481 ;    slain, 

485 
Attila :   defeated  by  Aetius,  530 
Attica :     compared     with     Boeotia,     13 ; 
geography     of,     14 ;     autochthonous 
claims   of,   26;    early   history   of.   97 
Aulis :  Greek  colonization  from,  53 


Austria-Hungary :  in  relation  to  mod- 
ern Greece,  548 

Augustus :  Greece  separated  from  Mace- 
donia under,  521 

Aurelian,  the  Roman  emperor,  525 


B 


Babylon :  fall  of,  126 ;  revolts  against 
Darius,    129;    taken    by    Alexander, 

497  _ 
Babylonia :     relation     of    civilization    to 

Greece,  21 
Bactria :  conquered  by  Alexander,  499 
Barbarian :  as  distinct  from  Hellene,  25, 

33 

Bardis  of  Persia:  slain  bv  Cambyses, 
128 

Batis:  slain  by  Alexander,  495 

Battus:  royal  house  of  Gyrene,  87 

Belisarius :  recovers  dominion  for  Jus- 
tinian, 532 

Beneventum:  Pyrrhus  defeated  at,  516 

Bessus  :  Persian  usurper,  499 

Boeotia :  geography  of,  12 ;  settled,  47 ; 
loses  Plataea,  iii;  makes  war 
on  Athens,  143;  joins  Cleomenes 
against  Athens,  143 ;  submits  to 
Xerxes,  195 ;  campaign  against  the 
Persians  in,  206;  conquered  by 
Athens,  245 ;  revolts  against  Athens, 
248;  joins  Sparta  in  Peloponnesian 
war,  262;  invaded  by  the  Athenians, 
310;  invaded  by  Lysander,  398;  in- 
vaded by  Agesilaus,  400;  League  of, 
dissolved,  419;  League  of,  recon- 
stituted by  Thebes,  437;  invaded  by 
Phocians,  462;  invaded  by  Philip  of 
Macedon,  477 

Boeotian  League,  13,  footnote;  dissolved, 
419;  reconstructed,  437 

Boges :  Persian  governor,  228 

Boulc :  created  by  Solon,  106;  recast  by 
Cleisthenes,  147;  expelled  by  the 
Four  Hundred,  358;  restored,  362; 
recast  by  the  Thirty  Tyrants,  384; 
in  modern  Greece,  548 

Bozarris,  Marco:  at  Missolonghi,  544 

Brasidas :  at  Salamis,  290;  wounded  at 
Pylos,  302;  saves  Megara,  310;  cap- 
tures Amphipolis  and  other  places, 
313;    killed    in    battle,    317 


INDEX 


567 


Bronze  Age,  22 

Bruttians :  conquests  of  the,  418 
Byzantium :    site    fixed    by    oracle,    44 ; 
founded,    82;    taken    by    Pausanias, 
222;  revolts  against  Athens,  and  is 
retaken,  260-261 ;  second  revolt  from 
Athens,  363;  retaken,  367;  joins  the 
Athenian    League,    429;    engages    in 
the    Social    War,   454;    besieged   by 
Philip,    473;    relieved    by    Phocion, 
474;   rise  of,  513;   made   capital  of 
Constantine,  526;  see  also  Constanti- 
nople 
Byzantine  Empire:  breaking  up  of,  535 
Byron,  Lord:  at  Missolonghi,  542 


Cadmeia:  seized  by  Phoebidas,  422;  re- 
covered, 425 
Cadmus :  significance  of  legend,  27 
Callias  of  Athens,  250 
Callias  of  Chalcis,  473 
Callibius:  aids  "the  Thirty"  at  Athens, 

384 
Callicratidas :      Spartan     admiral,     370; 

killed  at  Arginusae,  ^tT^ 
Callimachus:  at  Marathon,  166,  168 
Callippus:   murders  Dion,  416 
Callixenus:   impeaches  the  strategi,  374 
Camarina:  taken  by  Gelo,  217;  restored, 

220;    taken    by    the    Carthaginians, 

412 
Cambyses :  king  of  Persia,  127 ;  reduces 

Egypt,  127;  death  of,  128 
Capo     d'Istrias :     elected     president     at 

Athens,  545 
Cappadocia:    assigned   to    Eumines,   512 
Carduchians :  fierce  tribe  of  Asia  Minor, 

390 
Carians :  conquered  by  Persia,  125;  join 

Ionian  revolt,  135 
Carlowitz,   Peace  of,  539 
Carthaginians:  invade  Sicily,  218;  second 

invasion  under  Hannibal,  408;  wars 

with  Dionysius,  412;  war  with  Timo- 

leon,    417;    war    against    Syracuse, 

Cassander:    king    of    Macedonia,    511; 

.    death  of,  514 
Catana:   destroyed  by  Gelo,  219;   joins 


the  Athenians,  334;  besieged  by  S}-- 
racusans,  408;  battle  of,  413 

Catholics :  see  Roman  Catholics 

Cephallenia :  allied  to  Athens,  280 

Chabrias :  wins  battle  of  Naxos,  430; 
slain  at  Chios,  454 

Chaereas :  adventures  of,  359 

Chaeroneia :  battle  of,  477 

Chalcedon :  taken  by  Alcibiades,  367 

Chalcideus :  Spartan  admiral,  352 

Chalcidice :  settled,  79 ;  revolts  to  Brasi- 
das,  309;  league  of,  420;  league  dis- 
solved by  Sparta,  423 ;  conquered  by 
Philip,  464 

Chalcis :  colonial  energy  of,  79,  83 ; 
taken  by  Athenians,  154 ;  at  war  with 
Athens,  163 ;  revolts  to  Sparta,  361 ; 
allied  with  Athens,  473 

Chalons-sur-Marne :  battle   at,  530 

Chares :  campaigns  of,  454,  474 ;  com- 
mands at  Chaeroneia,  477 

Charidemus :  aids  Athens,  466 

Charlemagne ;  the  emperor,  533 ;  crowned 
by  the  Pope,  534 

Charminus :  defeated  at  Samos,  357 

Charon,  the  Theban,  423 

Chios :  colonized  by  Greeks,  55 ;  His- 
tiaeus  at,  136;  fleet  of  at  Lade,  137; 
revolts  from  Persia,  212;  revolts 
from  Athens,  352 ;  beset  by  the 
Athenians,  357;  revolts  from  Sparta, 
401;  joins  Athenian  naval  alliance, 
429 ;  engages  in  the  Social  War,  454 ; 
taken  by  Memnon,  490;  rise  of,  513; 
massacre  at,  544 

Christianity:  aided  by  diffusion  of  Greek 
culture,  513;  established  by  Con- 
stantine, 524,  526;  progress  of,  527; 
accession  of  barbarians  to,  529; 
influence  of,  538 

Cimmerians:   devastate  Lydia,   116 

Cimon :  Athenian  general,  222 ;  his  vic- 
tories, 228;  his  character  and  policy, 
232;  victorious  at  the  Eurymedon, 
233 ;  aids  Sparta,  237 ;  ostracized, 
240;  recalled,  247;  last  victories  of, 
247 

Cinadon :   conspiracy  of,  398 

Cithseron,  Mount:  11,  12 

Civilization  of  Greece;  Aegean  culture, 
20;     checked    by    Dorian    invasion, 

49 
Cleopatra,  the  Egyptian :  death  of,  522 


568 


INDEX 


Cleopatra;  wife  of  Philip  of  Macedon, 
481 ;  murdered,  511 

Clazomcnac :  taken  by  the  Persians,  135 ; 
revolts  from  Athens,  352 

Clcaridas :   Spartan  general,  318 

Cleisthenes :  expels  Hippias  from  Athens, 
112;  leader  of  democrats  at  Athens, 
140;  exiled,  141;  recalled,  141;  his 
constitutional    reforms,    144 

Cleitus :  saves  Alexander's  life,  489; 
murdered  by  Alexander,  501 

Cleombrotus,  king  of  Sparta :  invades 
Boeotia,  428;   slain  at   Leuctra,  434 

Cleomenes  I,  king  of  Sparta :  in  expe- 
ditions against  the  Athenians,  141; 
defeats  the  Argives,  156;  at  Aegina, 
163;  death  of,   173 

Cleomenes  III:  last  of  the  Spartans,  517 

Cleophon :  opposes  peace,  366,  374 ;  death 
of,  378 

Cleruchies :  Athenian  system  of,  144 
note,  249,  258 

Clearchus :  leads  expedition  of  the  Ten 
Thousand,  389;  slain,  389 

Cleippides :  Athenian  general,  besieges 
Mitylene,  291 

Cleon :  accuses  Pericles,  283 ;  advocates 
massacre  of  Lesbians,  294;  his  char- 
acter, 294 ;  opposes  peace,  304 ;  at 
Spacteria,  306;  killed  at  Amphipolis, 

317 
Climax,  Mount:   Alexander  at,  490 
Cnemus :  Spartan  general,  289 
Codrus :  patriot  king  of  Athens,  98 
Cnidus:   founded,  56;   battle  of,  401 
Codrington,  Admiral,  545 
Colonization :  of  lonians  and  Aeolians  in 
earliest    authentic    history,    31  ;    in- 
fluenced   by    Delphi,     44 ;     in    Asia 
Elinor,  51;  age  of,  78;  under  Alex- 
ander, 495,  504 
Colophon :  taken  by  the  Athenians,  367 
Conmierce :  among  Aegean  peoples,  22 ; 
of  Phoenicians,  26 ;  in  age  of  coloniz- 
ation, 78 ;   effect  of  tyranny  on,  95 ; 
Ionian   activity   in,    114;    of   modern 
Greece,  sjq,  550 
Commodus,  Roman  emperor,  525 
Conon  :  Athenian  admiral,  370;  bcsie':,^ed 
in  Mitylene,  371 ;  llies  to  Cyprus,  376; 
takes   service   with    Persia,   401;    re- 
builds   walls    of    Athens,    402;    im- 
prisoned, 404 


Constantino:  Christianity  established  by, 
524 

Constantinople  (Byzantium)  :  Goths  ad- 
vance on,  530;  Byzantine  empire 
united  under,  532;  capture  by  Per- 
sians, 533;  besieged  by  Saracens, 
533;  fall  of  535,  536;  result  of 
fall   of,   558;    Turkish   massacre   at, 

543 
Constitution :    of  modern   Greece,   548 
Corcyra :     founded,     83 ;     rivalry     with 
Corinth,  86;  origin,  92;  at  war  with 
Corinth,    265 ;    asks    aid    of   Athens, 
266 ;   sedition  at,  299,  308 ;    Spartan 
attack  on,  431 
Corfu :  taken  by  Venetians,  536 ;  in  mod- 
ern Greece,  548 ;  military  school  at, 

549 

Corinth:  situation  of,  16;  allies  with 
Sparta,  74 ;  revolt  from  oligarchy 
in,  76;  joins  Laconian  League,  76; 
colonies  of,  86,  88;  typical  political 
history  of,  92;  aids  Athens,  173;  con- 
gress at,  178;  at  war  with  Athens, 
242;  at  war  with  Corcyra,  265, 
269;  advocates  Peloponnesian  War, 
269;  battle  near,  308;  aids  Sparta, 
323 ;  sends  help  to  Syracuse,  339 ;  ad- 
vocates destruction  of  Athens,  377; 
makes  war  on  Sparta,  398;  cam- 
paigns around,  402,  403 ;  sends  Tim- 
oleon  to  Sicily,  417;  faithful  to 
Sparta,  440;  makes  peace  with 
Thebes,  446;  tyranny  at,  453;  allied 
to  Athens,  473 ;  submits  to  Philip, 
478;  congress  at,  479;  joins  Achaean 
League,  516;  siege  of,  520;  made 
Grecian  capital,  522;  burned,  537; 
canal  of,  550 

Corinth,  Isthmus  of,   14 

Coroneia:  first  battle  of,  248;  second 
battle  of,  400 

Cos,  island  of:  colonized,  56 

Craimon :    Antipator's   victory   at,   512 

Cresphontes,  Dorian  hero,  48,  60 

Cretan  script,  27 

Crete:  Island  of,  19;  early  civilization  of, 
22 ;  Phoenician  settlements  in,  27 ; 
early  script  in,  27;  Dorian  mii^^ra- 
tion  to,  56;  taken  by  Venetians, 
536;  taken  by  the  Turks,  538;  de- 
creed   autonomous,    548 

Crimesus :  battle  of  the,  417 


INDEX 


569 


Critias :  leader  of  the  Thirty  Tyrants, 
383 ;  his  misrule,  385 ;  slain,  387 

Croesus  of  Lydia :  legendary  visit  from 
Solon,  108;  account  of,  117;  war 
with  Persia,  123 ;  defeated  by  Sardis, 
124;   conquered  by  Cyrus,   124 

Croton:  conquers  Sybaris,  215;  Pytha- 
goreans at,  215;  taken  by  Dionysius 
of  Syracuse,  414 

Crusades,  the,  535 

Crypteia,  309 

Cumae :  first  Greek  town  in  Italy,  82 ; 
settled,  83;  battle  of,  219;  taken  by 
Sabellians,  414 

Cunaxa :  battle  of,  389 

Curium :  Greek  colony  of,  57 

Currency :  in  time  of  Pheidon  of  Argos, 

59 

Current  Convention,  the,  548 

Cyaxares :  king  of  Medea,  120 ;  empire 
of,  122 

Cyclades,  18;  Ionic  colonization  of,  54; 
captured  by  Turks,  539 

Cyclic  poems,  the,  31 

Cydnus :  Alexander  at  the,  491 

Cylon :  conspiracy  of,  99 

Cynoscephalae :  Philip  V  defeated  at, 
518 

Cyme :  named  by  Locrians,  53 ;  taken  by 
Persians,  135 ;  besieged  by  Tissa- 
phernes,  391 

Cypriot  syllabary,  27,  56 

Cyprus:  early  syllabary  used  in,  27,  56; 
Greek  settlements  in,  56;  submits  to 
Persia,  127;  subdued,  135;  joins  the 
Ionian  revolt,  135 ;  invaded  by 
Cimon,  247;  submits  to  Alexander, 
494;  massacres  in,  543;  liberated 
from  Egyptians,  514 

Cypselus :  tyrant  of  Corinth,  92 

Cyrene :  site  fixed  by  oracle,  44 ;  founded, 
87;, submits  to  Persia,  128 

Cyrus  the  Great :  account  of,  122 ;  con- 
quers Lydia  and  Ionia,  124,  125 ; 
conquers  Babylon,  126;  estimate  of, 
127;  death  of,  127 

Cyrus,  the  younger :  governor  of  Asia 
Minor,  369;  aids  Lysander,  369;  re- 
bels against  his  brother,  388;  march 
of  the  "Ten  Thousand"  under,  389; 
killed,  389 

Cythera :   a   Phoenician  possession,  27 

Cyzicus,  settled,  80;  battle  of,  365 


D 


Danai :  in  Homer,  23 1  i"  Egyptian  in- 
scriptions, 22 

Danes,  535 

Damocles  :  story  of,  412 

Daras :  battle  of,  532 

Darius  I :  king  of  Persia,  128 ;  becomes 
king,  128;  reorganizes  his  empire, 
130 ;  invades  Scythia,  132 ;  incensed 
■with  Athens,  139;  sends  out  Datis 
and  Artaphernes,  165 ;  dies,  172 

Darius  II :  his  treaty  with  Sparta,  352 ; 
sends  Cyrus  to  Asia  Elinor,  369; 
dies,  388 

Darius  III:  ascends  the  throne,  487;  at 
Issus,  492 ;  makes  proposals  to  Alex- 
ander, 493;  at  Arbela,  496;  murdered 
by  Bessus,  499 

Datis :  commander  at  Alarathon,  165 

Debtors :  Solon's  legislation  respecting, 
104 

Decarchies :  in  Asia  Minor,  381 

Decelea :  seized  by  Spartans,  342 

Delium :  battle  of,  311 

Delos:  confederacy  of,  217;  strengthened 
by  Pericles,  238 ;  synod  and  treasury 
of,  removed  to  Athens,  241 ;  organiz- 
ation of,  257;  name  of  war  fund 
changed  on  account  of,  429 

Delphi:  oracle  of,  11,  43;  not  referred  to 
in  Homeric  poems,  33 ;  influence  on 
colonization,  88;  protected  by  Solon, 
103 ;  ambiguity  of,  123 ;  bribed  by 
Cleomenes,  163 ;  prophecies  of,  be- 
fore Persian  War,  179;  attacked  by 
Xerxes,  198;  seized  by  the  Phoceans, 
460;  delivered  by  Philip,  469 

Delyanni :  in  politics  of  modern  Greece, 
548 

Demaratus,  king  of  Sparta,  143,  163,  190 

Demes  of  Attica,  145 

Demeter:  in  Greek  theology,  39 

Demetrius  Poliarcetes :  account  of,  513, 
S14 

Democracy :    first   established   at   Argos, 

**    59;  recurrence  of,  95 

Demosthenes :  Athenian  general,  300 ;  in 
Acarnania,  301 ;  fortifies  Pylos,  302 ; 
takes  Sphacteria,  307;  sent  to  Sicily, 
342 ;  captured,  346 ;  slain,  347  ;  Athe- 
nian orator,  464 ;  Olynthiac  orations 
of,   466;    sent   on   embassy  to    Pella, 


570 


INDEX 


467;  political  activity  of,  469;  travels 
in     Peloponnesus,    470;     urges    the 
Athenians    to    war,    472;    persuades 
the  Thebans  to  war,  476;   stirs   up 
Greece  against  Alexander,  485 ;   in- 
cites revolt,  512 
Dercyllidas :    Spartan    general,    391,    401 
Dicasteries,  the  Athenian,  149,  252 
Diodotus ;  opposes  Cleon,  295 
Diomedes :  in  Homer,  2S 
Diocletian,    Emperor,   522,   526 
Dion:    expels    Dionysius    II,    416;    ban- 
ished, 416;   killed,   416 
Dionysius :  in  Greek  theology,  39 
Dionysius,  the  elder:  his  rise,  410;  death 

of,  415 

Dionysius,  the  younger:  his  reign,  415; 
exiled,  416;  at  Corinth,  417 

Diopeithes  :  Athenian  general,  472 

Dodona :  oracle  of,  8,  43 

Dorcis  :  Spartan  admiral,  223 

Dorians:  country  of,  12;  conquer  Pelo- 
ponnesians,  31,  47;  in  age  of  migra- 
tions, 46 

Doris :  conquered  by  Phocians,  244 

Dorus :  mythical  founder  of  Hellenic 
clan,  24 

Draco,  laws  of,  100;  abolished  by  Solon, 
107 


Eastern  question,  the,  547 

Eetionea :    fort  of,   361 

Ecclesia,  the :  made  powerful  by  Solon, 
107;  altered  by  Cleisthenes,  147 

Ecbatana :    Median  capital,   123 

Edonian  Thracians :  See  Thracians, 
Edonian 

Education :  in  modern  Greece,  549 

Egypt:  relation  of  civilization  to  Greece, 
21;  to  Crete,  22;  inscriptions  in, 
relating  to  Greece,  25,  33 ;  ravaged 
by  Achaians  and  Danai,  33,  51 ;  re- 
ligion of,  compared  to  religion  of 
Greeks,  40;  Greek  intercourse  with, 
87;  reduced  by  Cambyses,  127; 
Athenian  campaigns  in,  240,  246; 
Agesilaus  in,  452;  conquered  by 
Alexander,  495 ;  assigned  to  Ptolemy 
I    after    death    of    Alexander,    512; 


Greek  prosperity  in,  513;  absorbed 
by  Rome,  522;  conquered  by  Sara- 
cens, 533 ;  aids  Turks  against  Greeks, 

544 

Eion :  conquered  by  Athenians,  228; 
Thucydides   at,   314 

Eira :    fall  of,  75 

Elcusis :  mysteries  of,  332;  seized  by 
Thirty  Tyrants,  387 

Eleusinian  mysteries :  profaned  by 
Alcibiades,   332 

Elis :  description  of,  17 ;  feud  with  Pisa, 
74,  75 ;  makes  war  on  Sparta,  321, 
440;  wars  of,  with  the  Arcadians, 
446;  civil  war  in,  leads  to  alliance 
with  Philip  of  Macedon,  470 

Endius,  the  Spartan:  351;  envoy  to 
Athens,  365 

Epaminondas :  patriot  of  Greece,  13 ; 
character  of,  427;  in  congress  at 
Athens,  431 ;  commands  at  Leuctra, 
432;  invades  Peloponnesus,  440,  443, 
445 ;  invades  Thessaly,  444 ;  at- 
tempts to  take  Sparta,  448;  com- 
mands at  Mantinea,  449;  killed, 
450 

Epariti :  in  Arcadia,  440 

Ephesus :  Greek  settlement  of,  55;  taken 
by  the  Persians,  126;  recaptured 
after  Ionian  revolt,  137;  Athenians 
defeated  at,  367;  Lysander  at,  369; 
Agesilaus  at,  394;  submits  to  Alex- 
ander, 490 

Ephialtes :  Malian  traitor,  192 

Ephialtes :  the  Athenian,  238;  murdered, 
240 

Ephors :  introduced  in  Sparta,  68 

Epidamnus :  civil  war  at,  264 

Epidaurus :  at  war  with  Athens,  240; 
allied  to  Sparta,  274,  324,  440;  be- 
sieged by   Epaminondas,   443 

Epipolae :   plateau  of,  335 

Epirus:  geography  of,  7;  tribes  of,  at- 
tack the  Acarnanians,  289;  con- 
quered by  Philip,  471 

Epistates :  office  of  the,  148 

Epitadas :   Spartan  general,  307 

Erechtheum  :  temple  at  Athens,  255 

Eretria :  colonial  energy  of,  79,  83;  aids 
the  Tonians,  134;  taken  by  the 
Persians,  165 ;  revolts  against 
Athens,  248 ;  battle  of,  361 ;  tyrants 
of,  473 


INDEX 


571 


Etruscans    (Tj'rrheni)  :  location  of,  83; 
defeated  at  Cumae,  218;  aid  Athens, 

339 
Euagoras :  of  Cyprus,  376 
Euboea:    island    of,    14;    revolts    from 
Athens,    248,    361 ;    joins    the    The- 
bans,  438;  wars  in,  464,  474;  taken 
by  Venetians,  536;   taken  by   Sara- 
cens, 537;  taken  by  Turks,  539 
Eudamidas :   Spartan  general,  421 
Eumines :  his  share  of  Alexander's  em- 
pire, 512 
Euphron :  tyrant  of  Sicyon,  453 
Eupompidas :  of  Plataea,  297 
Eupatridae,  at  Athens,  98,  99 
Euripides :    at   the   court   of   Archelaus, 

456 
Eurybiades :  Spartan  admiral,  186,  199 
Eurymedon :   battle  of  the,  234 
Eurymedon :  Athenian  general,  303,  308 ; 
tried  and  condemned,  313;  killed  at 
Syracuse,  344 
Euxine     Sea :     Greek     settlements     on 
shores  of,  80 


Factories:    established    by    Phoenicians, 

27 
"  Five  Thousand  "  :  at  Athens,  358 
Flavian  emperors  of  Rome,  524 
"  Four    Hundred " :     conspiracy    of,    at 

Athens,  358;  fall  of,  361 
France :   in  relation  to  modern  Greece, 

548 
French  Revolution :  influence  of,  541 


Galatia:  settled  by  Gauls,  515 

Games,  the  Greek,  42 

Gargaphia :  fountain  of,  209 

Gaza :  taken  by  Alexander,  495 

Gedrosia :  Alexander  in,  502 

Gela:  tyrants  of,  217;  taken  by  Car- 
thaginians, 412 

Gelo :  of  Syracuse,  217 

George,  of  Denmark:  accepts  throne  of 
Greece,  546 


Germany:  in  relation  to  modern  Greece, 
548 

Glaucus,  the  Spartan,  44 

"  Gordian   knot,"   490 

Gordium :    Alexander    at,    490 

Goths :   invade  Greece,  529 

Government  of  Greece :  in  Homeric 
Greece,  34;  institutions  of  Lycurgus, 
62 ;  under  tyranny,  90,  95 ;  under 
monarchy,  91 ;  under  oligarchy,  91, 
98;  in  eighth  century  B.  c,  98;  Draco, 
100;  Solon  and  Peisistratus,  102; 
Cleisthenes,  140;  of  Athens  in  fifth 
century  b.  c,  232 ;  under  Spartan  su- 
premacy, 380;  under  Romans,  521; 
under  King  Otho,  546;  of  modern 
Greece,  548 

Graeco-Turkish  War,  the,  548 

Gregory  H,  Pope,  534 

Gregory  HI,  Pope,  534 

Gregory  VH,  Pope,  535 

Granicus :  battle  of  the,  488 

Great  Britain :  in  relation  to  modern 
Greece,  548 

Greece :  geography,  3 ;  Aegean  civiliza- 
tion :  origin  of  the  Greek  nationality, 
20;  Homeric  poems  and  the  Greeks 
of  the  Homeric  Age,  29;  religion  of 
the  Greeks  :  Olympia  and  Delphi,  38 ; 
the  great  migrations,  46;  colonies  in 
Asia,  51;  Dorians  in  Peloponnesus 
— the  legislation  of  Lycurgus,  58; 
establishment  of  Spartan  supremacy 
in  Peloponnesus,  70 ;  age  of  coloni- 
zation, 87 ;  age  of  the  tyrants,  90 ; 
early  history  of  Attica,  97;  Solon 
and  Peisistratus,  102;  the  Lydian 
monarchy,  114;  Cyrus  and  Darius, 
119;  Darius  and  the  Greeks — the 
Ionian  revolt,  131;  constitution  of 
Cleisthenes,  140;  European  Greece 
— jealousy  of  the  states,  154;  battle 
of  Marathon  to  the  invasion  of 
Xerxes,  165  ;  the  invasion  of  Xerxes, 
181 ;  Salamis  and  Plataea,  195 ; 
Greeks  of  Italy  and  Sicily,  214; 
events  in  Asia  Minor  and  Greece, 
222;  rise  of  Athenian  empire,  232; 
Athens  at  the  height  of  her  power, 
241;  the  years  of  peace,  251;  rivalry 
of  Sparta  and  Athens,  262;  early 
years  of  the  Peloponnesian  War, 
274;    siege  of   Plataea,  286;    Sphac- 


512 


INDEX 


teria  and  Delium,  299;  Brasidas  in 
Thrace,  313;  the  Truce  of  Nicias, 
320;  expedition  to  Sicily,  328;  de- 
cline of  Athens,  349;  surrender  of 
Athens,  363 ;  Spartan  supremacy  in 
Greece,  379 ;  revolt  from  Sparta, 
396;  the  Greeks  of  the  West,  407; 
last  years  of  Spartan  hegemony,  419; 
uprising  of  Thebes,  426;  Theban 
predominence,  436;  the  Peace  of  362 
B.  c,  to  Philip's  invasion,  452;  Philip 
and  Demosthenes,  463 ;  end  of  free- 
dom, 471;  Alexander  the  Great,  483; 
Alexander's  successors  and  the 
Greek  leagues,  511;  under  Roman 
rule,  521 ;  the  Middle  Ages  and 
Turkish  yoke,  532;  the  Greek  War 
of  Independence,  542;  the  present 
kingdom,  546 

Greek  Church,  the  Orthodox,  548,  549 

Gyges  of  Lydia,  116 

Gylippus:  in  Sicily,  339;  defeats  the 
Athenians,  344,  347 

Gythium :  taken  by  Athenians,  246;  burnt 
by  Thebans,  441 


H 


Hadrian,  the  Roman  emperor,  523,  525 
Haliartus ;    destroyed    by    Xerxes,    196; 

battle  of,  398 
Halicarnassus :    founded,    56 ;    siege    of, 

489 
Hamilcar:    invades    Sicily,    218;    killed, 

218 
Hannibal :     takes     Setinus,     408 ;     takes 

Himera,  409;  death  of,  410 
Harmodius :      attempts      overthrow      of 

tyranny  at  Athens,  112 
Harmosts :  Spartan  system  of,  381 
Harpagus :  the  Mede,  125 
Hecataeus :    ridiculed  by   Herodotus,   21 
Hector:   in  Homer's  Iliad,  29 
Helen :  story  of,  29 
Heliaea:  at  Athens,  147 
Helicon,  Alount,  11,  12 
Helots:   introduced   in   Sparta,  70;   con- 
spire with  Pausanias,  228;  rising  of, 

237 ;  subdued,  246 
Hellas :    restricted   sense   of,   7 
Hellen :    mythical    founder    Hellenes,   9; 

eponymous  hero,  23 


Hellenes :  antiquity  of,  3 ;  Homeric  limi- 
tation  of  name,  33 

Hellenic  Peninsula :  description  of,  3 

Hellenotamiae:  in  Confederacy  of  Delos, 
227,  258 

Hellespont:  bridged  by  Darius,  131; 
bridged  by  Xerxes,  183 ;  Athenian 
operations  in  the,  222 ;  made  Spartan 
base  of  operations,  363 

Hera:  confused  attributes  of,  39;  of 
Samos,  52 

Heracles:  divine  ancestor  of  kings  of 
Sparta,  21 ;  adopted  from  Phoeni- 
cians, 28;  temple  of,  at  Tyre,  494 

Heraclius :    annihilates    Persian    forces, 

533 

Hermae :   mutilation  of,  331 

Hermione :  in  the  Spartan  alliance,  274, 
440 

Hermocrates :  of  Syracuse,  347 ;  in  Asia, 
352;  slain,  409 

Hermopolis :  in  modern  Greece,  548 

Herodes  Atticus :  his  benefits  to  Athens, 
523 

Herodotus  :  quoted  on  Homeric  theology, 
38;  ridicules  chronology  of  Heca- 
taeus, 21;  quoted,  54;  on  consti- 
tution of  Lycurgus,  64;  at  Thnrii, 
260 

Hesiod :  compared  to  Homer,  13,  38 

Iletaeria  Philike :   founded,  541 

Hiero:  tyrant  of  Syracuse,  218 

Hiketas:  tyrant  of  Leontini,  417 

Hittites :  in  Asia  Minor,  52 

Himera:  victory  of  Gelo  at,  218;  de- 
stroyed by  Hannibal,  409 

Hipparchus :  tyrant  of  Athens,  in 

Hippias:  tyrant  of  Athens,  in;  at 
Sparta,  155;  joins  the  Persians,  164; 
at  Marathon,  165 

Hippocrates:  defeated  at  Delium,  311 

Histiaeus:  favored  by  Darius,  132;  at 
the  Danube  bridge,  132;  fosters 
Ionian  revolt,  133 ;  slain,  138 

Homeric  poems :  account  of,  29 ;  the 
Homeric  problem,  30;  historic  value 
of,  31,  32;   compared  to  Hesiod,  38 

Honorius :  Roman  ruler  of  the  East, 
528 

Huns,  The :  invade  Greece,  529 

Hymettus  Mountains,  14 

llyperbolus:  Athenian  demagogue,  357 

Hyperides:  Athenian  orator,  512,  513 


INDEX 


573 


K 


Iconoclasts,  The,  534 

Ictinus :  architect  of  the  Parthenon,  255 

Ida,   Mount,   19 

IHad,  the,  29 

IHum  (Troy)  :  Alexander  at,  488 

Inarus :  Egyptian  prince,  246 

India :  expedition  of  Darius  to,  131 ; 
Alexander  in,  501 

Independence,  Greek  War  of,  539,  542 

International  Financial  Commission : 
established  by  the  powers,  548 

Ion :  mythical  founder  of  Hellenic  clan, 
24;  significance  of  legends  concern- 
ing, 26 

Ionia :  conquered  by  Persia,  125 ;  revolt 
of,  134;  freed  by  the  Athenians,  212; 
submits  to  Alexander,  489 

lonians :  in  relation  to  Pelasgians,  23 ; 
expelled  by  Achaians,  48;  colonize 
Asia  Minor,  31,  54 

Ionian  Islands :  returned  to  Greece,  546 

Iphicrates :  at  Corinth,  402 ;  relieves 
Corcyra,  431;  in  Peloponnesus,  442; 
in  the  Social  War,  454 

Isagoras,  the  Athenian,   140,  151 

Ismenias,  the  Theban,  397;  executed  by 
the  Spartans,  422 

Issus :  battle  of,  492 

Italiots :  history  of,  214 

Italy :  Pelasgi  spread  to,  23 ;  Greek  col- 
onization in,  83 ;  Greek  prosperity  in, 
513;  in  relation  to  modern  Greece, 
548 

Ithaca :   home  of  Odysseus,   10 

Ithome :  peak  of,  17 ;  in  Messenian  wars, 
72 ;  stronghold  of  the  revolted 
Helots,  237,  246;  site  of  city  of 
Messene,  442 


Jerusalem :  conquered  by  Saracens,  533 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  522 
Jews,  the :  in  modern  Greece,  549 
Julian     emperors :     Greece     under     the, 

524 

Jason  of  Pherae :   career  of,  437 ;  mur- 
dered, 438 

Justinian  Code,  the,  532 

Justinian,  the  Byzantine  emperor,  532 


Kolokotronis  :  Greek  patriot,  544 
Konstautinos,    Prince :    crown   prince   of 
Greece,  548 


Lacedaemon :  see  Sparta 

Lacedaemonius :    Athenian    admiral,    268 

Lachares,  tyrant  of  Athens,  514 

Laches  :  Athenian  admiral,  299 

Laconia :  geography  of,  16 ;  Dorian  state 
in  Peloponnesus,  60;  invaded  by  the 
Thebans,  440 

Lade:  battle  of,  137 

Lamachus:  Athenian  general,  329;  his 
plans  of  Sicily,  3^3  5  killed  at  Syra- 
cuse, 338 

Lamian  War,  The,  512 

Lampsacus :  Lysander  at,  375 

Larissa  :  invites  aid  of  Macedonians,  444 ; 
taken  by  Pelopidas,  444;  appeals  to 
Philip,  461 ;  in  modern  Greece,  548 

Laurium :  silver  mines  of,  175 

Lelantine  War,   115 

Leo  III,  Byzantine  emperor:  saves  Con- 
stantinople from  Saracens,  533 

Leonidas  of  Sparta,  186;  slain  at  Ther- 
mopylae, 193 

Leontiades  of  Thebes :  his  treachery, 
421 ;  murdered,  424 

Leontini :  taken  by  Hiero,  219;  captured 
by  Syracusans,  328;  appeals  to 
Athens,  329 ;  resettled  by  Syracusans, 
410;  in  the  hands  of  Hiketas,  417 

Leosthenes  :  Greek  general,  512 

Leotychides  of  Sparta :  made  king,  163 ; 
at  Mycale,  212 

Leotychides  the  j-ounger,  391 

Lepanto:   battle  of,  537 

Lepreum :  attacked  by  Elis,  321 

Lesbos :  Pelasgics  displaced  in,  53 ;  sub- 
mits to  Persia,  126;  revolts  from 
Athens,  291;  subdued,  294;  con- 
quered by  Memnon,  490;  taken  by 
Saracens,  537 

Lesches  and  the  Cyclic  poems,  31 

Leucas :  makes  war  on  Acarnanians,  289 

Leuctra :  battle  of,  432,  466 

Libya :  relation  of  civilization  of,  to 
Crete,  22 


574 


INDEX 


Liberation,  War  of:  See  Independence, 
Greek  War  of 

Lilybaeum:    siege   of,   415 

Locri :  founded,  84 ;  in  hands  of  Di- 
onysius  II,  416 

Locrians,  the  Amphissian,  460,  475 

Locrians :  subdued  by  Xerxes,  196 ;  sub- 
dued by  Athens,  245 ;  make  war  on 
Phocis,  397;  join  Thebes,  438; 
beaten  by  Philomehis,  460;  at 
Delphi,  475;  join  Aetolian  League, 
516 

Locrians,  Opuntian :  revolt  from  Athens, 
248;  at  war  with  Phocis,  397;  con- 
clude treaty  with  Thebes,  438; 
harassed  by  Phocians,  461 

Lombards :  conquer  Northern  Italy,  533 

Long  Walls:  of  Athens,  242;  destroyed, 
378;   rebuilt  by  Conon,  402 

Lycomedes,  the  Arcadian,  444 

Lycurgus:  consults  oracle  of  Delphi,  44; 
institutions  of,  61,  62;  attempt  to 
revive  institutions  of,  517 

Lycians :  conquered  by  Persia,  126 

Lydia:  kingdom  of,  114;  conquered  by 
Persia,    123 

Lysander:  made  nauarchus,  386;  wins 
battle  of  Notium,  369;  allied  with 
Cyrus,  375 ;  wins  battle  of  Aegos- 
potami,  376;  takes  Athens,  378;  his 
influence  in  Greece,  381 ;  disgraced 
by  ephors,  382;  goes  with  Agesilaus 
to  Asia,  393;  slain  at  Haliartus, 
398 

Lysicles :  Athenian  general,  477 

Lysimachus :  his  share  in  Alexander's 
empire,  512 


M 


Macedonia :  submits  to  Persia,  133 ; 
allied  to  Brasidas,  313;  invaded  by 
Pelopidas,  444;  people  of  compared 
to  the  Greeks,  455 ;  in  division  of 
Alexander's  empire,  512;  assigned 
to  Polysperchon,  512;  supremacy  in 
Greece,  513;  resistance  to  supremacy 
of,  516;  made  R^man  province,  519 

Magi :  The  Zoroastrian  priests,  122,  128, 
129 

Magnesia :  Greek  settlement  of,  53 


Malli :  oppose  Alexander,  502 

Mantinea:  feud  with  Tegea,  18;  allied  to 
Sparta,  237;  at  war  with  Sparta, 
321 ;  first  battle  of,  325 ;  walls  of, 
cast  down  by  Sparta,  420;  walls  of 
rebuilt,  439;  joins  Sparta,  447;  sec- 
ond battle  of,  449 

Manufactures :  in  modern  Greece,  547 

Mardonius :  governor  of  Ionia,  139 ;  per- 
suades Xerxes  to  retire  home,  205 ; 
occupies   Athens,   207;   killed,  211 

Marathon,  battle  of,  166 

Marcus    Aurelius,    Kmperor,    523,    525 

Mardonius :  fights  battle  of  Plataea,  209 

Masistus,  the  Persian,  209 

Massagetae :   slay  Cyrus,   127 

Massilia :  founded,  85 ;  Phocaean  colony, 
125 

Mausolus :  takes  Rhodes,  455 

Mavrokordatos :  Greek  general,  544 

Medes,  The:  rise  of,  120;  conquered  by 
Cyrus,  123 ;  rebellion  of,  129 

Megabyzus :  conquers  Egypt,  246;  in 
Thrace,  132 

Megacles :  crime  of,  100 

Megalopolis:  founded,  440;  its  wars  with 
Sparta,  453,  465 

Megara :  made  Dorian  capital,  49 ;  colo- 
nization from,  82;  allied  with 
Athens,  242;  at  war  with  Athens, 
248;  foments  Peloponnesian  war, 
263;  ravaged  by  Athenians,  280; 
saved  by  Brasidas,  310;  at  war  with 
Philip,  473 ;  submits  to  Philip,  479 

Megara  Hyblaea :  destroyed  by  Gelo, 
217 

Melcarth:  Phoenician  model  of  Hera- 
cles, 28 

Meletus :  at  war  with  Persians,  382 

Melicertes :   worshiped   by   Corinth,  28 

Melos :  island  of,  19 ;  a  Phoenician  pos- 
session,   27;    conquered    by    Athens, 

Memnon :     general    against    Alexander, 

489 
Mende :  revolts  from  Athens,  315 
Menelaus :  in  Homer's  U'xad,  29,  33 
Meros :  colonized,  56 
Messene    in    Sicily :    founded   as   Zancle, 

83;  taken  by  Anaxilaus,  217;  taken 

by  Carthaginians,  413 
Messenia:    geography    of,     17;     Dorian 

state  in   Peloponnesus,  60;   founded 


INDEX 


575 


by  Epaminondas,  442;  wars  of,  with 
Sparta,  71,  237,  470;  allied  to  Philip, 
470;   joins  Achaean  League,  519 

Messenian   Wars,  71,  237,  470 

Methone:  taken  by  Philip,  461 

Migrations,  the  great,  46 

Miletus :  settled  by  Greeks  under  Neleus, 
SS ;  pioneer  colony  in  Asia  Minor,  80 ; 
attacked  by  Alyattes,  116;  revolts 
from  Persia,  134;  destruction  of,  by 
Persians,  137;  joins  the  Athenians, 
212;  revolts  from  Athens,  352;  battle 
of,  354 ;  taken  by  Alexander,  489 

Miltiades,  the  Athenian,  132;  plans 
desertion  of  Darius,  132;  sketch  of, 
158;  commands  at  Marathon,  166; 
his  Persian  expedition,  171 ;  dies, 
171 

Mindarus:    in    Hellespont,    364;    slain, 

365 
Minos:    prehistoric   king    of    Crete,    19, 

22 
Missolonghi:    death   of   Byron   at,   542; 

defense  of,  544 
Mithridates  and  war  with  Rome,  521 
Mitylene :    founded,   53;   joins   Ionic  re- 
volt, 138;  besieged  by  Spartans,  371; 
revolts  from  Athens,  291 ;  siege  of, 
292;   joins  naval   league,  429 
Mohammedans :    crusades    against,    535 ; 

in  modern  Greece,  548 
Mohammed,   the   prophet,   533 
Mohammed  II :  conquests  of,  537 
Mohammed  AH :  assists  Turks,  543 
Monarchy,  the :  in  Greek  political  history, 

91 
Money:  early  coinage  changed  by  Solon, 

104 
Morea,  the :  recovered,  536 ;  revolts  from 

Turks,    542;    evacuated    by    Turks, 

545 

Mummius,  Lucius :  completes  Roman 
conquest  of  Greece,  520 

Munychia :  fighting  in,  386 

Mycale:  battle  of,  212 

Mycale,  Mount:  sanctuary  of  Poseidon 
on,  55 

Mycenae :  archaeological  remains  of,  22 ; 
Homeric  importance  of,  z^,  33;  im- 
portance in  prehistoric  Greece,  49; 
obscurity  after  Dorian  invasion,  59; 
taken  by  Argives,  237;  recent  dis- 
coveries respecting,  548 


Myron :  annalist  of  Sparta,  72 
Myronides :     defeats     Corinthians,     243 : 

conquers    Boeotia,   245 
Mythology  of  the  Greeks :    Homer  and 

Hesiod  in  relation  to,  39 


N 


Nabonadius :  conquered  by  Cyrus,  126 
Napoli  di  Romania :  captured  by  Greeks, 

544 

Nauarch :  office  of  the,  368 

Naucratis :    founded,  87 

Naupactus :  taken  by  Athenians,  246 ; 
sea  fight  off,  290;  taken  by  Lysander, 
380 

Navarino :  naval  battle  of,  545 

Navigation :  among  the  Phoenicians,  27 

Navy:  of  Megara,  102:  Polycrates 
famed  for,  126;  of  Chios  and 
Byzantium,  513;  success  of,  in  War 
of  Independence,  542,  544;  of  mod- 
ern Greece,  550 

Naxos :  island  of,  18;  Persian  expedi- 
tion against,  133 ;  conquered  by 
Persia,  165 ;  revolts  against  Athens, 
234 ;  sea  fight  off,  430 ;  created 
Italian  duchy,  536 

Naxos  in  Sicily :  founded,  83 ;  at  war 
with  Syracuse,  299;  joins  Athens, 
334;  beset  by  Syracusans,  408 

Nearchus :  Alexander's  admiral,  502,  505 

Nectanebis,  king  of  Egypt,  452 

Neleus :  establishes  Miletus,  55 

Nemesis :  Greek  theory  of,  124 

Neo-Hellenic  Party,    the,  548 

Neolithic  Age :  in  Greece,  21 

Nero :  Roman  emperor,  523 

Nestor :  in  Homeric  poems,  33 

Nicaea :  Greek  empire  in,  536 

Nicaea :  Council  of,  527 

Nicias :  opposes  Cleon,  305 ;  captures 
Cythera,  309;  peace  of,  317;  opposes 
Alcibiades,  322 ;  opposes  Sicilian  ex- 
pedition, 329;  sent  to  Sicily,  332;  his 
plans,  333;  besieges  Syracuse,  2?>7\ 
his  dilatoriness,  338;  sends  for  aid, 
340 ;  refuses  to  raise  siege,  343 ;  cap- 
tured, 347;  slain,  347 

Niceratus :  put  to  death,  384 

Nicholas,  czar  of  Russia,  545 


576 


INDEX 


Nicodemia:    made    capital    of     Roman 

province,  526 
Nicodromus  of  Aegina,  173 
"Nine  Ways,"  the,  236 
Nomophylaces :  function  of  the,  239 


O 


Ochus:  king  of  Persia,  455 

Odeum,  the,  254 

Odoacer:  ends  the  Roman  empire,  531; 

defeat  of,  532 
Odysseus:    home    of,    10;    in    Homeric 

poems,  29,  33,  82 
Oenophyta  :  battle  of,  245 
Oetaeans:    join   Lysander,   397;    at   war 

with  Phocis,  461 ;  proposals  of  the, 

469 
Olga,  queen  of  Greece,  547 
Oligarchy:  at  Argos,  59;  at  Corinth  and 

Sicyon,     replaced     by    tyranny,    76; 

cause  for  emigration,  82 ;   in  Greek 

political   cycle,   91 ;    in    Asia   Minor, 

114 

Olympiad :  as  unit  of  time,  42 ;  date  of 

first,  58 
Olympias :    mother    of    Alexander,    481, 

483,  511 

Olympic  Games :  first  mentioned,  59 ;  re- 
ferred to  by  Pausanias,  60 

Olympus,  Mt. :  height  of,  4;  abode  of 
gods,  8;  not  referred  to  in  Homer, 
33 

Olynthns :  its  freedom  acknowledged, 
318;  forms  Chalcidian  League,  420; 
conquered  by  Sparta,  423 ;  at  war 
with  Athens,  459;  attacked  and 
conquered   by   Philip,  466 

Onomarchus :  the  Phocian,  460;  his  suc- 
cesses, 461 ;  slain,  462 

Oracles  of  Greece,  the,  43 

Orchomenus:  archaeological  remains  of, 
22;  importance  in  prehistoric  Greece, 
49 

Orchomenus  in  Arcadia:  adheres  to 
Sparta,  440 

Orchomenus  in  Boeotia :  seized  by  oli- 
garchs, 248;  joins  Spartans,  397; 
aids  Agesilans,  400;  holds  out 
against  Thebes,  430 ;  taken  by  Epam- 
inondas,  437;  taken  by  Onomar- 
chus, 462 


Oroetes:  satrap,  129 

Oropus :   taken  by  Thebans,  446 ;   given 

to   Athenians  by   Philip,  479 
Orthodox     Greek     Church :     see     Greek 

Church,  the  Orthodox 
Ortygia,  335 
Ossa,  Mount,  8 

Ostracism :  system  of,  at  Athens,  150 
Otho :  made  king  of  Greece,  546 
Othryades  :  Spartan  victor,  76 
Ottoman  Turks :  in  Greece,  536 
Ozolian  Locrians:  defeated  by  Philome- 

lus,  460 


Paches :  takes  Mitylene,  293 ;  slays  him- 
self, 296 

Pactyas :  the  Lydian,  125 

Pagondas :  commands  at  Delium,  311 

Paleologus:  recovers  Constantinople,  536 

Pan :  legend  of,  166 

Pangaeus,  Mount:  gold  mines  of,  235; 
mines  worked  by  Philip  of  Mace- 
don,  459 

Paphos :  Greek  colony  of,  57 

Paphlagonia :  assigned  to  luimenes  after 
death  of  Alexander,  512 

Paralus:  Athenian  galley,  353,  357, 
359,  403,  503 ;  captured  by  Macedo- 
nians, 467 

Paris :  in  Homer's  Iliad,  29 

Parmenio:  general  of  Alexander,  490;  at 
Lssus,  492;  at  Arbela,  496;  mur- 
dered,  500 

Parnassus,  Mount,  5,  11 

Paros :  island  of,  18;  attacked  by  Miltia- 
des,  171 

Parthenon  of  Athens,  255,  536,  539 

Parysatis,  Queen,  388 

Patras :  in  modern  Greece,  548 

Pausanias :  commands  at  Plataea,  207, 
210;  at  Byzantium,  223;  deposed, 
224;  conspires  with  Helots,  228; 
starved,  229 

Pausanias,  King  of  Sparta :  pacifies 
Athens,  387 ;  invades  Boeotia,  398 

Pausanias,  the  Macedonian:  slays  Philip, 
481 

Pinacotheca,  the :   at  Athens,  255 

Peiraeus  :  founded  by  Themistocles,  161 ; 
its  walls  destroyed  by  Lysander,  378; 


INDEX 


577 


rebuilt  by  Conon,  402;   restored  to 
Athens,  512;  in  modern  Greece,  548 
Peisander:    at    Samos,    355;    organizes 
conspiracy  at  Athens,  358;    flies  to 
the  Spartans,  362 
Peisistratidae :  rulers  at  Athens,  94 
Peisistratus :  tyrant  of  Athens,  95,  109 
Pella :    founded,    456;    Athenians    treat 

with  Philip  at,  467 
Pelasgi:  in  Hellenic  tradition,  23;  mean- 
ing of  name,  24 ;  displaced  in  Lesbos 
by   Aeolians,    53 ;    amalgamate   with 
Greeks   in   Chalcidice,  79;    in   Italy, 

83 

Pelasgic  Age :  in  Greek  civilization,  23 ; 
religion  of,  38 

Pelasgus :  eponymous  hero  of  Pelas- 
gians,  23 

Pelopidas :  slays  polemarchs,  423 ;  char- 
acter of,  426;  at  Leuctra,  435;  in 
Peloponnesus,  441 ;  imprisoned,  444 ; 
conquers   Thessaly,   444;    slain,    448 

Peloponnesus :  geography  of,  14 ;  con- 
quest of,  31 ;  Spartan  supremacy  in, 
70;  see  also  Sparta,  Achaia,  Elis, 
Arcadia,  Argos,  and  (post-Hellenic) 
the  Morea 

Peloponnesian  War,  274 

Pelion,  Mount,  5 

Pentelicus  Mountains,  14 

Pepin,  "  The  Short " :  assists  the  popes, 

534 
Perdiccas :  of  Macedon,  269 
Periander :  conquers  Corcyra,  86 ;  tyrant 

of  Corinth,  93 ;  ally  of  king  of  Lydia, 

95 
Pericles :  sketch  of,  238 ;  conquers  Eu- 
boea,  249 ;  bribes  the  Spartans,  249 ; 
reforms  of,  251;  power  of,  251;  his 
buildings,  254;  his  system  of  cleru- 
chies,  258;  conquers  Samos,  260;  ad- 
vocates alliance  with  Corcyra,  267; 
unpopularity  of,  in  432  b.  c,  272 ; 
his  policy  in  Peloponnesian  war,  279; 
ravages  Megarians,  280;  prosecuted 
by  Cleon,  283 ;  death  of,  285 
Pericles,  the  younger :  enfranchised,  285 ; 

made  strategus,  370 ;  executed,  374 
Perinthus :  captured  by  Athenians,  367; 

besieged  by  Philip,  473 
Perioeci :    introduced   in    Sparta,    70 
Persepolis :  sacked  by  Alexander,  498 
Perseus:  last  king  of  Macedonia,  519 


Persian  Empire :  founded,  120 ;  rise  un- 
der Cyrus  and  Darius,  122;  organ- 
ized by  Darius,  129;  conquered  by 
Alexander,  498;  wars  of  Justinian 
with,  532;  conquered  by  Saracens, 
533;  Turkish  wars  with,  537 

Persians :  see  Cyrus,  Cambyses,  Darius, 
Xerxes,  Artaxerxes  Ochus 

Persephone :   in  Greek  theology,  39 

Phalanx,  the  Macedonian,  458 

Phalaris:  tyrant  of  Agrigentum,  94 

Phalerum :  Athenian  harbor  of,  161 

Pharnabazus:  asks  aid  at  Sparta,  351; 
assists  Mindarus,  363;  equips  the 
fleet,  366;  defeated  by  Dercyllidas, 
391;  chased  by  Agesilaus,  394;  at 
battle  of  Cnidus,  401 

Phayllus,  the  Phocian :  defeated  by 
Philip,  461 ;  death  of,  463 

Pheidias :  decorates  the  Parthenon,  255, 
256;  accused  of  impiety,  272 

Pheidon :  king  of  Argos,  59,  74,  95 

Philip  n :  taken  as  hostage  to  Thebes, 
444;  sketch  of,  457;  becomes  king, 
458;  founds  Philippi,  459;  takes 
Amphipolis  and  Pydna,  459;  invades 
Thessaly,  461 ;  checked  at  Thermop- 
ylae, 462;  takes  Olynthus,  466; 
makes  peace  with  Athens,  467;  sub- 
dues Phocis,  468;  his  influence  in 
Peloponnesus,  470;  subdues  Epirus, 
470;  besieges  Perinthus  and  Byzan- 
tium, 473;  retires  into  Thrace,  474; 
invades  central  Greece,  476;  subdues 
Thebes  and  Athens,  478 ;  wins  battle 
of  Chaeroneia,  478;  calls  congress 
at  Corinth,  479;  his  plans,  480;  as- 
sassinated,   481 

Philip  V  of  Macedon:  account  of,  517 

Philippi :  founded,  459 

Philippics  of  Demosthenes,  466,  472 

Philippides :  legends  of,  166 

Philippopolis :  founded,  473 

Philippus,  the  Theban,  424 

Philippus :  Alexander's  physician,  491 

Philocrates :  Peace  of,  468 ;  banishment 
of,  469 

Philogenes :  leader  of  Greek  emigrants 
to   Phocaea,  55 

Philomelus :  seizes  Delphi,  460;  slain, 
461 

Philopoemen,  the  "  last  of  the  Greeks," 
518 


578 


INDEX 


Philosophy,  Greek:  in  Asia  Minor,  115; 
Pythagoreans   in   Italy,   215 

Philotas :  slain  by  Alexander,  500 

Phocaea:  colonizations  of,  82,  85,  125; 
destroyed  by  Persians,  125 ;  founds 
Alalia,  125 

Phocion :  campaign  of,  in  Euboea,  464 ; 
opposes  Demosthenes,  467 ;  relieves 
Byzantium,  474;  rebukes  Demosthe- 
nes, 481 ;  obtains  Macedonian  clem- 
ency for  the  Greek  cities,  513 

Phocis :  geography  of,  12 ;  invaded  by 
Xerxes,  195 ;  at  war  with  Sparta, 
244 ;  allied  to  Athens,  245 ;  attacked 
by  Thebes,  397;  aids  Lysander,  398; 
subdued  by  Thebans,  438;  at  strife 
with  Boeotia,  459;  fortunes  of,  in 
the  sacred  war,  460;  subdued  by 
Philip,  468 

Phoebidas :  seizes  the  Cadmeia,  421 ; 
tried,  422;  slain,  429 

Phoenicians :  relation  of  to  Aegean  civi- 
lization, 26;  influence  on  Greek  re- 
ligion, 28,  40;  decline  of,  78;  submit 
to  Cambyses,  127;  fleet  of,  employed 
by  Persians,  136,  182,  234,  360;  sub- 
mit to  Alexander,  493 

Phormio :  naval  victories  of,  290 

Phrygia :  destroyed  by  Cimmerians,  116 

Phrynichus  (politician)  :  conspires  with 
the  Four  Hundred,  358;  his  coup 
d'etat,  360;   murdered,  360 

Phrynichus   (tragic  poet),  137 

Phyllidas,  the  Theban,  423 

Pindar :  greatest  of  lyric  poets,  13 

Pisa :  feud  with  Elis,  74,  75 

Plague  at  Athens,  282 

Plataea :  its  troops  at  Marathon,  167 ; 
destroyed  by  Xerxes,  196;  battle  of, 
209 ;  taken  by  Athens,  262 ;  attacked 
by  Thebans,  277;  siege  of,  297;  re- 
stored by  Spartans,  419;  again  de- 
stroyed by  Thebans,  430 

Plato:  visits   Syracuse,  415 

Pleistoanax :  bribed  by  Pericles  and  ex- 
iled, 249;  restored  from  exile,  317 

Pnyx,  the,  149 

Polemarch :  office  of  created  at  Athens, 
98 

Polycrates:  tyrant  of  Samos,  95,  126; 
death  of,  129 

Polybius:  Greek  historian,  519 

Pompeii :  destroyed  by  Vesuvius,  524 


Pontus :  kingdom  of,  522 

Porus,  King  of  India :  opposes  Alexan- 
der, 501 

Poseidon:  in  Greek  theology,  39;  Isthmi- 
an Games  in  honor  of,  42;  sanctuary 
on  Mount  Mycale,  55 

Potidaea:  established,  80;  revolts  from 
Athens,  269;  recaptured,  284;  taken 
by  Philip  of  Macedon,  459 

Probouleumata :  in  Athenian  constitu- 
tion, 147 

Probus,  M.  Aurelius,  Roman  emperor, 
525 

Procles :  leads  Ionic  settlement  in  Samos, 

55 
Propylaea :  built  by  Pericles,  255 
Prytanies :  in  Athenian  constitution,  147 
Psammetichus     I     of     Egypt:     employs 

Greek  mercenaries,  87 
Psammetichus  II  of  Egypt,   127 
Psyttaleia,  island  of,  201 
Ptolemy   I :    shares  Alexander's  empire, 

512 
Ptolemy    Ceraunus:    seizes    Macedonian 

throne,  515 
Pydna:  taken  by  Philip,  459;  battle  of, 

519 

Pylos,  bay  of,  17 

Pylos    (Messenia)  :    Athenians   at,   301; 

fighting  at,  302 
Pyrrhus:  king  of  Epirus,  515;  becomes 

king  of  Sicily,  516 
Pythonicus :  accuses  Alcibiades,  332 


R 


Ralli :  in  modern  politics  of  Greece,  548 

Ravenna :  siege  of,  532 

Religion  of  the  Greeks :  influence  of 
Phoenicians  on,  28;  of  Pelasgic  Age, 
38;  compared  to  Egyptian  and  Assy- 
rian, 40;  growth  of  morality  in,  40; 
in  Asia  Minor,  52;  of  modern 
Greece,  549 

Renaissance,  the,  538 

Rhegium :  Messenians  settle  in,  73 ; 
founded,  84;  tyrants  of,  216;  at  war 
with  Syracuse,  299;  Athenians  at, 
333 

Rhianus :  epic  poet  of  Sparta,  72,  74 

Rhodes:  Greek  colonization  of,  56;  re- 
volts from  Athens,  353;  joins  naval 


INDEX 


579 


league,  429;  engages  in  Social  War, 
454 ;  conquered  by  Mausolus,  455 ; 
maritime  importance  of,  513;  De- 
metrius repulsed  at,  514;  occupied 
by  Order  of  St.  John,  536 
Robert  Guiscard :  ravages  Greece,  535 
Roman    Catholics :    in    modern    Greece, 

549 

Rome:  Greek  culture  in,  513;  allies  with 
Aetolian  League,  518;  Greece  fav- 
ored by  emperors  of,  523;  litera- 
ture of,  in  time  of  Augustus,  524; 
division  of  empire  of,  526;  fall  of 
empire  of,  under  Romulus  Augus- 
tulus,  531 

Romulus  Augustulus :  deposed  by  Odoa- 
cer,  S3I 

Roumenians:  rupture  with,  549 

Roxana:  espoused  by  Alexander,  503; 
causes  murder  of  Statira,  511 

Russia:  in  relation  to  Greece,  539,  548; 
sides  with  Greece,  542 


Sacred  War:  the  first,  103;  the  second, 
460 ;  the  third,  475 ;  end  of,  468 

Salaethus:  at  Mitylene,  292;  slain,  294 

Salaminia:  Athenian  galley,  334 

Salamis :  Greek  colony  of,  57 ;  taken  by 
Megara,  102;  battle  of,  202,  247; 
ravaged  by  Spartans,  290 

Samos :  Ionic  settlement  of,  55 ;  coloniza- 
tion from,  82;  Polycrates  tyrant  at, 
126;  fleet  of,  at  Lade,  137;  recon- 
quered by  Persians,  137;  revolts 
from  Persia,  212;  revolts  from 
Athens,  260;  in  Peloponnesian  war, 
353 ;  Athenian  fleet  at,  355 ;  sedition 
at,  357;  taken  by  Lysander,  382; 
taken  by  the  Athenians,  453 

Sappho:  Lesbian  poetess,  115 

Saracens,  the :  foes  of  Byzantine  empire, 

533 
Sardanapalus :  Greek  story  of,  120 
Sardis :  taken  by  Croesus,  124 ;  burnt  by 
the  lonians,   135 ;   submits  to  Alex- 
ander, 489 
Satrapies :  instituted  by  Darius.  130 
Scione:    revolts   from  Athens,  315;   re- 
taken, 318 


Scipio  Africanus:  Roman  general,  518 

Sciritis :  taken  from  Sparta,  479 

Scylax  of  Caryanda,  131 

Scythia:  invaded  by  Darius,  131;  invaded 
by  Alexander,  500 

Scythians :  Greek  relations  with,  81 ; 
Darius's  expedition  against,  131 

Seleucis   of    Syria:    account   of,   515 

Selinus :  at  war  with  Segesta,  328 ;  aids 
Syracuse,  339;  destroyed  by  Cartha- 
ginians, 408 

Sellasia:  battle  at,  517 

Selymbria:  taken  by  Athenians,  367 

Sestos :  taken  by  Athenians,  222 ;  Athe- 
nian fleet  at,  364 

Shalmaneser  V:  subjects  Tyre,  78 

Sicels :  aid  the  Athenians,  337 

Sicily :  Greek  colonization  in,  83,  84 ; 
early  history  of,  214;  wars  in,  301; 
invaded  by  the  Athenians,  328;  re- 
newed wars  in,  408;  invaded  by 
Carthaginians,  409;  in  the  power  of 
Dionysius  I,  413 ;  freed  by  Tinio- 
leon,  417;  after  death  of  Timoleon, 
515;  succumbs  to  Rome,  516;  re- 
covered by  Belisarius,  532 

Sicyon :  revolt  from  oligarchy  in,  76 ; 
joins  Laconian  League,  77;  tyranny 
in,  94;  sends  ships  to  Salamis,  199; 
attacked  by  Athenians,  246 ;  taken  by 
Epaminondas,  443;  joins  Achaeian 
League,  516 

Sidon:  subjected  by  Assyria,  78 

Sinope :  rise  of,  81 ;  destroyed  by  Cim- 
merians, 116 

Sisygambis:  mother  of  Darius  III,  493, 

499 
Sitalces  of  Thrace,  284 
Slavs:  invade  Byzantine  empire,  533 
Smyrna :  Turkish  massacre  at,  543 
Social  War,  the,  454 
Social  life  of  Greece:  in  Homeric  times, 

32 
Socrates :    opposes   the   decrees    of   Cal- 

lixenus,  374;   death  of,  397 
Sollium :  retained  by  Athens,  317 
Solon :  consults  oracle  of  Delphi,  44 ;  life 

of,   102;   legislation  of,   104;   travels 

and  later  life,   108 
Sophia    of    Russia,    Princess :    becomes 

consort  of  Greek  heir  apparent,  548 
Sophocles,  the  tragedian:  commands  at 

Samos,  260 


580 


INDEX 


Spain:  in  relation  to  Aegean  civiliza- 
tion, 22 

Sparta :  geography  of,  i6,  17 ;  early  state 
of,  61;  social  condition  of,  66;  disci- 
pline of,  ascribed  to  Lycurgus,  66; 
supremacy  of,  70,  379;  struggle  with 
Argos,  74;  allied  to  Croesus,  123;  re- 
fuses to  aid  Ionia,  134;  expels  Cleis- 
thenes,  141 ;  at  war  with  Argos,  156; 
sends  troops  too  late  for  Marathon, 
170;  sends  Leonidas  to  Thermopylae, 
186;  troops  of,  at  Plataea,  209;  at- 
tacked by  revolted  Helots,  246;  sub- 
dues Helots,  246;  at  war  with 
Athens,  247;  makes  peace,  249; 
supports  the  Corinthians  against 
Athens,  271 ;  resources  of,  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  Peloponnesian  war, 
274;  after  battle  of  Leuctra,  436; 
attacked  by  Epaminondas,  448;  con- 
tinues war  with  Messene,  451; 
makes  war  on  Megalopolis,  453 ;  aids 
the  Phocians,  462 ;  attacked  by  troops 
of  Philip,  470;  refuses  to  submit  to 
Philip,  479;  opposes  Alexander,  485, 
491,  506;  joins  Achaean  League,  516; 
attempts  to  regain  supremacy,  517; 
end  of  monarchy  in,  517 

Spithridates :  the  satrap,  489 

Sphacteria :  blockaded,  303 ;  captured, 
307 

Sphodrias :  attempts  to  seize  Athens, 
428 

Statira :  Persian  wife  of  Alexander,  511, 

544 

Sthenelaidas,  the  Ephor,  270 

St.  John,  Knights  of,  536,  540 

Strabo :  quoted,  15 

Strategi :  the  Athenian,  148;  privileges 
of,  174 

Styx :  mysterious  river  of  Greece,  15 

Susa:  capital  of  Cyrus,  123;  Themis- 
tocles  at,  231;  Pelopidas  at,  445; 
taken  by  Alexander,  497 

Sybaris  :  founded,  84 ;  wealth  of,  85 ;  de- 
stroyed by  Croton,  215;  Thurii  colo- 
nized by,  260 

Sybota :  sea-fight  off,  268 

Syracuse :  founded,  83,  92 ;  tyranny  at, 
94,  217,  219;  at  war  with  Catana, 
299 ;  destroys  Leontini,  328 ;  siege  of, 
337;  victory  of,  over  Athens,  346; 
sends  ships  to  the  Aegean,  352;  at 


war  with  its  neighbors,  408;  war 
with  Carthage,  408;  subject  to  Dio- 
nysius  I  and  H,  415;  anarchy  at,  416; 
freed  by  Dion,  416;  freed  by  Timo- 
leon,     417;     ruled     by     Agathocles, 

515 
Syria:     assigned     to     Antigonus     after 
death  of  Alexander,  512;  conquered 
by  Saracens,  533 


Tactics,  Greek  Military :  see  under  Alex- 
ander, Marathon,  Mantinea  (first 
battle  of),  Iphicrates  and  Epami- 
nondas 

Tanagra :  battle  of,  244 

Tarentum:  settled,  Ti'i  84;  wars  of,  with 
lapygians,  220;  later  wars  with  Lu- 
canians,  418 

Taxes :  in  modern  Greece,  547 

Taygetus  Mountains,  15 

'■  Tearless  Battle,"  the,  444 

Tegia:  feud  with  Mantinea,  18;  sub- 
mits to  Sparta,  76;  troops  of  at 
Plataea,  210;  troops  of  at  Mantinea, 
325 ;  battle  at,  237 ;  massacre  at, 
438;  troubles  at,  447 

Temenus :    Dorian  hero,  48 

Tempe,    Vale    of,    8;    Xerxes    in,     185 

"  Ten  Thousand,"  march  of  the :  see 
Cyrus 

"  Ten  Thousand  "  of  Arcadia,  440 

Teos :    revolts  from  Athens,  352 

Teucer:  of  Salamis,  57 

Thales   of  Miletus,    115 

Thasos :  a  Phoenician  possession,  27; 
revolts  from  Athens,  235 ;  revolts 
a  second  time  and  is  recovered, 
'^(iT,  taken  by  Etonicus,  2i7^ 

Thebes :  predominence  of,  13 ;  rise  in 
Boeotian  League,  47;  at  war  with 
Athens,  143,  244,  245;  joins  Xerxes, 
196;  troops  of  at  Plataea,  211; 
taken  by  the  Greeks,  211;  freed, 
248;  foments  Peloponnesian  War, 
262;  makes  attempt  on  Plataea, 
277;  troops  of  at  Delium,  311;  ad- 
vocates destruction  of  Athens,  377 ; 
insults  Agesilaus,  393;  war  of  with 
Sparta,  397,  428;  suffers  the  Peace 
of  Antalcides,  419;  seized  by  Phoe- 


INDEX 


581 


bidas,  422;  freed  by  tbe  exiles,  424; 
supremacy  of  in  Greece,  469;  strife 
of  with  Phocis,  459;  joins  Athenian 
Alliance,  476;  troops  of  at  Chae- 
roneia,  477;  taken  by  Philip,  478; 
destroyed  by  Alexander,  486 

Theodoric,  the  Goth,  532 

Theodosius  the   Great,  527 

Theogony  of  Hesiod,  39 

Themistocles :  character  of,  160 ;  founds 
Peiraeus,  161 ;  fosters  Athenian 
navy,  175 ;  convokes  congress  of 
Corinth,  178;  commands  in  Thes- 
saly,  185 ;  commands  at  Artemis- 
ium,  189;  advocates  evacuation  of 
Athens,  196;  disputes  with  the  ad- 
mirals, 199;  secret  dealings  of  with 
Xerxes,  202,  205 ;  his  embassy  to 
Sparta,  225 ;  his  exile  and  death, 
230 

Thcotokis:  in  modern  politics  of 
Greece,  548 

Thera,  Island  of:  19;  colonized  by 
Dorians,   56 

Theramenes :  heads  opposition  in  fac- 
tion of  the  Four  Hundred,  360;  ac- 
cuses the  generals  after  Arginusae, 
373;  his  embassy  to  Sparta,  2>71\ 
joins  the  Thirty  Tyrants,  383;  slain 
by  Critias,  386 

Thermopylae :  Pass  of,  11;  Leonidas  at, 
186;  battle  of,  190;  the  Athenians 
seize,  462;  Philip  passes,  476;  An- 
tiochus  defeated  at,  518 

Thero  of  Acragas:  218 

Thersites :  in  Homer's  Iliad,  36 

Thespiae:  troops  of,  at  Thermopylae, 
193;  burnt  by  Xerxes,  196;  aids 
Sparta,  428;  taken  by  Thebans, 
430 ;    destroyed,   437 

Thessaly:  geography  of,  8:  settled,  46; 
submits  to  Xerxes,  185 ;  troops  of 
desert  Athens  at  Tanagra,  244; 
towns  of  allied  to  Athens,  275 ; 
Brasidas  in,  313;  Agesilaus  crosses, 
400;  subdued  by  Jason,  437;  Pelop- 
idas  in,  444;  Alexander  in,  444: 
joins  Thebes  against  Phocians,  460; 
Philip  in,  462;  becomes  subject  to 
Philip,  471 ;  joins  Aetolian  League, 
516;   Turkey  withdraws  from,  546 

Thesus :  skeleton  of  discovered  in 
Scyros,  233 


Thetes:    archonship  opened  to,  252 

Thibron :     general    in    Asia,   390 

"  Thirty  Tyrants  "  at  Athens :  account 
of,  383 

"  Thirty  Years  Peace,"  the,  250 

Thrace:    assigned    to    Lysimachus,    512 

Thracians,  Edonian :  slay  Aristagoras, 
136;    defeat  the   Athenians,   236 

Thrasybulus:    tyrant  of  Miletus,  93 

Thrasybulus,  Athenian  general :  at 
Samos,  359;  at  Cj^zicus,  364;  ex- 
iled, 384;  leads  attack  on  the 
tyrants,  386;  his  victory,  387;  death 
of,   404 

Thrasydaeus:    tyrant  of  Acragas,  219 

Thrasyllus:  general  at  Samos,  359; 
takes  Colophon,  z^j 

Thucydides,  son  of  Melesias :  opposes 
Pericles,  256;  exiled,  257 

Thucydides  (historian),  son  of  Olorus: 
on  Homeric  kingdoms,  34;  com- 
mands   Athenian    squadron,    314 

Thurii:  founded,  260;  aids  Athens, 
342;  at  war  with  the  Lucanians, 
414;    taken    from    Sparta,   479 

Thyrea:    given    to    the    Aeginetans,    281 

Tiglath-Pileser :  captures  Aradus,  78 

Timocrates,    of    Rhodes :     395 

Timolaiis,   of   Corinth:    399 

Timoleon:  liberates  Sicily,  417,  418; 
slays  his  brother,  453 

Timotheus:  at  Corcyra,  430;  fails  at 
Chios,  454 

Timophanes :    tyrant  of  Corinth,  453 

Tiribazus :    satrap,  403,  405 

Tiryns :  archaeological  remains  of,  22 ; 
importance    in     prehistoric    Greece, 

49 

Tisamenus :    in  Dorian  legend,  48 

Tissapliernes :  aids  the  Spartans,  352 ', 
intrigues  with  Alcibiades,  354;  im- 
prisons Alcibiades,  364;  superseded 
by  Cyrus,  369;  returns  to  Asia 
Minor,  390;  besieges  Cyme,  391; 
executed,   394 

Tithraustes :  satrap,  393,  394 

Tolmides:  harries  Messenia,  246;  slain 
at  Coroneia,  248 

Torone :  founded,  79;  revolts  from 
Athens,  314;   retaken  by  Cleon,  316 

Tragedy,  the  Greek :  anachronism  of, 
31 ;   religious  origin  of,  41 

Trajan,  the  Roman  emperor,  523 


582 


INDEX 


Trapezus:  founded,  8i;  the  "Ten 
Thousand "   at,  390 

Trebizond :  Greek  empire  in,  536 

Tricoupis :  in  politics  of  modern 
Greece,  548 

Trikkala :    in  modern  Greece,  548 

Triphylia:  disputed  by  Eleians  and  Ar- 
cadians,  444 

Troad :    Greek   colonization   in  the,   53 

Troezen :  receives  exiled  Athenians, 
197;  allied  to  Athens,  247;  aids 
Sparta,  274 

Trojan  Cycle:  see  Cyclic  poems 

Troy:  archaeological  remains  of,  22; 
story  of,  29 

Turks :     see   Ottoman   Turks 

Tyranny:  succeeds  oligarchy  at  Co- 
rinth and  Sicyon,  76;  age  of,  90;  in 
Greek  political  cycle,  91 

Tyre:  subjected  by  Assyria,  78;  stormed 
by  Alexander,  494 

Tyrians :    see   Phoenicians 

Tyrrheni:    see  Etruscans 

Tyrrheno-Pelasgi :  displaced  in  Scyros 
by  Athenians,  233 

Tyrtaeus:    Spartan  poet,  72,  74 


Vandals,  the:    530 

Velia  (Hyele)  :  founded  by  Phocaeans, 
125 

Venetians,  the :  invade  Greece,  536,  538 ; 
Morea  relinquished  to,  539;  sever- 
ity  of,    tow^ard    Greeks,   540 

Vesuvius,   eruption  of,  524 

Virgil:  anachronisms  of,  31 


w 


Writing:  early  forms  of  in  Crete,  22; 
alphabet  introduced  by  the  Phoe- 
nicians, 27;  Cretan  script,  27: 
Cypriot  syllabary,  27,  56 


X 


Xanthippus:     accuses     Miltiades,     171; 

commander   at   Mycale,    212 
Xenophon:      his     expedition     with     the 

"  Ten  Thousand,"   389 
Xerxes :    comes  to  the  throne,  172 ;  his 

character,  177;  invades  Greece,  181; 

returns   to   Asia,   206;    assassinated, 

231 


Ypisilanti:    Rebellion    of,    541,    542;    de- 
feated, 543 


Zacynthus :      ravaged     by     Corinthians, 

283 ;  allied  to  Athens,  300 ;  ravaged 

by  Iphicrates,  431 
Zante :     in   modern    Greece,   548 
Zenobia,  queen  of   Palmyra :    525 
Zeugitae :   class  at  Athens,  252 
Zeus :  oracle  of  at  Dodona,  8 ;  in  Greek 

theology,  39;   Olympian  Games,  42; 

Lycurgus    enjoins    worship    of,    63; 

temple    of,    commenced    by    Peisis- 

tratus.    III;   temple   of,   finished   by 

Hadrian,   523 
Zeno,   the   Byzantine   emperor :    532 
Zoroastrianism :   religion  of   Persia,   121 


^' 


\s 


